


while you're busy making other plans

by concernedlily



Series: while you're making other plans [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: First Time, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, Magic, Slice of Life, brief Ignis/OMC, bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:19:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 31,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8594176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concernedlily/pseuds/concernedlily
Summary: Noct grows up.(Note on the underage tag: Noct is 17, Ignis is 19.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as ever to lovely ataraxetta for beta, encouragement, general squeedom!
> 
> I'll just write a ficlet about how Ignis goes from combed hair and suiting waistcoats to leopardprint shirts and blinged-up jeans, I said. It'll be fun, I said...
> 
> The story is complete and will be posted in five parts over the next week or so, before the game comes out and probably josses me to buggery.

When Noct went into senior year, Ignis packed his bags and left. 

“I'll just be in the dorms during the week,” Ignis said, his brow creased with unhappiness, when Noct suggested to him that he was abandoning his important commitments to the crown, and also that Noct was probably going to starve during the week. “You've been so busy with Prompto, Noctis. I'll be back at weekends. You won't even notice.”

But he didn't say he wouldn't go to grad school. 

***

“Why would I forbid Ignis from going?” Dad said, heartlessly. “I've been involved in selecting his programme, his accelerated degree went so well. He's going to be your closest advisor, Noct. He has to see a bit more of the world than picking up your dirty socks.”

Everywhere, Noct was betrayed. 

***

“You are always saying he cramps your style,” Prompto offered. He pushed half his fries to Noct and Noct silently poured them onto his plate with his own, making sure they didn't touch the slimy lettuce and tomato he'd taken off his burger. “Why do you care? It'll be so cool! We can hang out at your place. We can have parties.”

Noct took a big bite out of his burger to avoid answering. He liked it when it was just him and Ignis in the apartment, and he didn't know anyone but Prompto who would come to a party for any reason other than to gawp at the prince, and even more than all that he knew he couldn't give the real explanation for why he cared: it was because Ignis was supposed to be there to help Noct, and Noct had spent the last few years complaining he didn't need any help, so he could hardly admit now he really did. 

***

Noct woke up late on Saturday, already smiling. He couldn't figure out why for a minute, until the familiar sounds outside the bedroom properly registered: the little noises of Ignis messing about, doing kitchen things that made the apartment smell good and produced delicious treats for Noct to eat but also meant it took him five minutes to find a water glass because Ignis had thought of a new system of organising the dishes. 

The apartment was in a decent state today. Noct had intended to use his new freedom to revert to the pigsty way of living but by Wednesday he'd found, irritatingly, it was actually nice not to be surrounded by takeaway food starting to rot and tripping over yesterday’s uniform on the floor and unable to find the right controller when he wanted to play a game. 

So he'd spent Friday evening picking up a little. The tabloids were always speculating about what scandals the teenaged prince got up to in his off time: if they only knew the glamour. 

He'd slept for a pretty long time already. He got out of bed, dragged a sweatshirt on, and headed out of his room. 

“Good morning,” Ignis said, sliding the last of a batch of cookies onto a tray on the counter to cool. “Or should I say, afternoon.”

He was smiling and Noct smiled back. 

Then he frowned. “You’re different,” he said. 

Ignis looked mortified. It was so weird: Noct couldn't figure out for a minute what was different, like he just hadn't bothered to memorise what Ignis looked like, because why would he need to when Ignis was always there?

“You've - have you done something with your hair?”

“No! It's just…” Ignis hung up the oven gloves and got out a Tupperware container to start piling the cookies into, even though they obviously weren’t ready yet: Ignis always cooled cookies for precisely nineteen minutes, because he'd worked out that was just the right amount of time for the chocolate chips to still be a little melty and nice but for the cookies to be structurally sound. 

“It's parted on the other side,” Noct said suspiciously. “Isn't it?”

“It's parted on the other side,” Ignis snapped. “Who cares?”

“You do,” Noct said. “You've always - you've looked exactly the same since you got to the citadel! Just taller!”

Ten years ago. So long ago Noct barely remembered a time Ignis hadn't been there, although he remembered the day Ignis had come. He'd been seven and Dad had brought in this serious-faced kid and just said this is Ignis, he lives here now, you stick with him and show him how things work around here, okay? And Noct, magnanimously, had shown his toy train track to Ignis, a really cool one that went all the way around the cathedra, even up and down a little slope on the first few stairs to the throne, and out into the hall and back, and the trains ran mechanically and went really fast. Ignis had stared at the train Noct handed him to play with like he didn't know what to do with it and Noct had thought he was a complete idiot and hadn't bothered to speak to him again for two weeks. Until Cor had taken them both out to play soccer in the palace grounds, and Noct had fallen over, and Ignis had come over to help him up, small and solemn, and grinned at him when Noct said thanks. 

A whole decade. They should've baked a cake. 

Although now he thought about it, perhaps Ignis had. There had been a very elaborate cake, about three months ago, with lots of raspberry jelly and buttercream in the middle and Noct’s favourite chocolate ganache for frosting, and Noct had eaten a lot of it and mumbled _thanks_ , and Ignis had looked pleased, but Ignis hadn't said anything about what it was for. Noct hadn't asked. 

“Then it was more than time for a change,” Ignis said. He smiled again, although it looked like it took an effort. “How are you, Noctis? How is school?”

“Fine,” Noct said. 

“Fine?” Ignis said. “Even calculus? I talked to your teacher and she -”

“When did you talk to my teacher?” Noct burst out. Even though Ignis talked to his teachers a lot. It wasn't like the King could rock on up to parent-teacher’s evening and Ignis was the one who signed the permission forms and helped Noct with his homework and memorised his class schedule. 

“On Wednesday,” Ignis said, sounding a lot calmer now he was back on familiar territory. 

“You came to my school on Wednesday and didn't see me?” Noct said. 

“No, I called her,” Ignis said. “And she said -”

“I don't want to know,” Noct said. “Everything's _fine_. It's only the third week of the semester.”

Ignis looked at him for a moment. “All right,” he said. “But you'll let me know if you need help.”

“Yeah,” Noct said, feeling mad and tired. He should've stayed in bed. He went over to the couch and flomped down onto it. Ignis followed him, out from behind the kitchen counter, taking his apron off and folding it neatly onto the dining table and hovering in the little living area. Noct stared up at the ceiling and refused to look at him. The cushion felt soft under his head: Ignis had plumped them up and set them at perfect angles in the corners of the sofa.

“I thought maybe you and I could do something together today,” Ignis said awkwardly. “I really… it was really odd not seeing you this week.”

“I've got _plans_ ,” Noct said, even though he didn't. It wasn't until he said it that he realised he too had had in the back of his mind that maybe he'd spend the day with Ignis. It wasn't like he couldn't find stuff to do. Prompto was never busy on weekends either and they could hang out and look at girls Prompto would never get up the nerve to ask out, or go see a movie, or play games. 

“Noctis,” Ignis said, with the note of disapproval Noct knew so well and hated so much. He'd just wanted a nice day, and everything felt spoiled and cold. 

“You can go,” Noct said, knowing he was being horrible and ungracious and yet unable to stop it from just falling on out of his mouth. It was something he was usually careful not to do, with Ignis and Gladio, to be so direct: there was always that little voice of his dad’s in his ear, reminding him that Gladio and Ignis were under his royal command, in effect. If he outright told them what to do, it was hard for them to ignore. 

“Fine,” Ignis said, clipped. “Enjoy your weekend, Noctis.” He gathered his things with the sharp, jerky movements that meant he was judging Noct so hard, and Noct rolled over and buried his face in the sofa cushions. 

At the staccato of Ignis’s footsteps, he turned back over. “And your hair looks stupid!” he shouted after him, meaning it to hurt. 

The door didn't slam - Ignis didn't slam doors - but it definitely shut with an angrier click than usual. 

***

Ignis came back the next day and roasted them a chicken for dinner. Noct didn't talk to him for the first half hour, but he drifted towards the kitchen eventually and let Ignis teach him how to make the filling for apple pie, with raisins and lots of cinnamon, the way Noct liked it. 

***

He invited Prompto back one evening after school, to try to make the time pass a little faster and the place feel a bit less quiet. He wouldn't have even said he and Ignis hung out, particularly - Noct just did stuff after school and Ignis was usually there - but it was weird without him. Noct kept listening out for the door to open, or opening his mouth as soon as he walked in the door to yell that he was back, and he hated the lingering feeling of wrongness when it didn't happen. 

He was sure he must have brought Prompto home before in the year they'd been friends, but Prompto was openmouthed as Noct said goodbye to Evra, who was driving him now that Ignis wasn't around, and led Prompto into his building. 

Prompto said, “Wow. You really… live in an apartment.”

“Yeah?” Noct said. “You knew that.”

“Yeah, but I figured it was, like, in the palace. Or close. Or something. I don't know.”

He sounded a bit intimidated. Noct slanted a look at Prompto as he pressed the button for the top floor. They weren't _far_ from the palace. Noct went back most weeks to see his dad. Prompto wasn't looking back, instead shrinking behind Noct as Forlanis tipped his cap to them, watching keenly as they went to his elevator. Noct had never asked, but all the doormen in his building had the suspiciously well-muscled and alert air of military, so Noct guessed he could see how he might look kind of scary.

He opened the laptop to his favourite pizza place and left it with Prompto to pick what pizza to order while he set up the latest _Fall of Darkness_ game.

“I did mine, what did you want to… oh, hey! I didn’t think that was even out yet.”

“I don’t know,” Noct said, distracted by trying to figure out the best save point to start playing with someone else. “The game people sent it to me.” He’d talked about one of the earlier games in the series in one of the interviews the palace press people had him do every year so the media would leave him alone to get on with school the rest of the time, and now games arrived at the palace; who knew when they were supposed to be out? 

“Wow,” Prompto said again and Noct looked up at him. Prompto never acted like Noct’s deal was a weird deal: that was part of what Noct liked about him. Prompto went faintly pink and said, “Can I look around?”

“Yeah, if you want,” Noct said, and pulled the laptop over on the couch cushions to add his usual order of breadsticks, soda, and ice cream. He looked up when he was done and Prompto was on the balcony, gleefully taking photos of the glitter and spread of Insomnia from twenty floors up. 

Noct hit send on the pizza order and went to dig his second GoStation controller out of the dresser in the guest room.

Later, they were finished playing and Noct was contemplating the homework he hadn’t done, and the extra reading Ignis had emailed over based on something one of the newspapers had said that morning that he also hadn’t done, when Prompto said tentatively, “How long have you lived here?”

Noct shrugged. He dragged himself up off the floor and curled in a corner of the couch and Prompto copied him, on the other end. “A year or something, I don’t know. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Prompto echoed. He glanced around, and so did Noct, following his gaze. It was a pretty nice apartment: it had been newly decorated when he’d moved in, and it was boring but it was fine. Noct sometimes thought it might be nice to put up a poster, or pick out some throw cushions himself, or do whatever else it was that people did to decorate, but so far he hadn’t done anything to it.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I like it.”

“Yeah, but. Noct, aren’t you lonely? Don’t you miss him?”

“No,” Noct said, irritated. He leaned his head against the back of the couch and picked at a loose thread on the cushion he pulled onto his lap. It was a little chilly in the apartment: he’d have to ask Ignis at the weekend how the central heating control panel worked. “I don’t miss him at all. He just tried to get me to do stuff all the time, and… anyway, he’s still in the city, he’s just at school. He’s still gonna be here a lot.”

There was a silence. Noct looked up and Prompto was eyeing him, with a look on his face some way between surprise and pity. Prompto was so easy: everything he thought just showed up on his face, or more usually fell straight out of his mouth. Not like the people Noct had grown up with at the palace, the kind of people who surrounded his dad and used to lean over Noct and talk to him like he was stupid, not just young. Prompto said, “I meant your _dad_. Don’t you miss your dad?”

“Oh,” Noct said. And then, “I’m going to call Evra to come pick you up. Your mom is going to be wondering where you are.”

Prompto was the other way around from Noct. He had a mom, but not a dad; that was probably why he was asking.

“Sure,” Prompto said uncertainly. “Thanks, man.”

Noct lay awake a pretty long time that night. He often did, magic crackling the air around him like it had nowhere to go, wiring him up too much to sleep. That was why he was here, why he'd asked to leave the citadel, what nobody knew. Not even Ignis, although sometimes his dad looked at him sadly and Noct thought - he must know. Because it must have happened to him, too, while Noct’s grandfather tested his strength on the Wall and failed a little more every day; Noct’s dad must have felt the crystal abandoning its King and reaching for its Prince, his father losing his skills and raw power bit by bit, weapons unsummoned, injuries and weaknesses unhealed. 

His dad would have felt that then, the way Noct did now. 

***

When Ignis came on Saturday, he was wearing an untucked white shirt with his jacket over it. It made him look taller, somehow, the long line of his chest flowing into his trim waist and the longer line of his legs. The shirt was probably expensive - probably all of them had been, but it had been hard to tell under the severely buttoned-up waistcoat Ignis always wore. 

It looked soft, touchable, fine enough to suggest Ignis’s muscled chest beneath it and the shadowed rounds of his nipples. The top three buttons were undone, showing a shock of Ignis’s pale skin, and the small necklace he wore, usually hidden beneath the shirt, the tiny skull that signified his service to the royal family. Noct had picked that, when they were both small enough for the simple charm to look bigger.

“What are you wearing,” Noct said. He couldn't look away, his heart beating a steady hard thrum he could feel in his stomach. 

“A shirt,” Ignis said self-consciously. “I always wear a shirt.”

“That is not what you always wear,” Noct said. 

“It's just a shirt,” Ignis said. “What do you want to do today? The Museum of Lucis has a new exhibition about video game design, I thought you might like it. It's supposed to be very good.”

It was a blatant attempt at misdirection. A museum, Noct thought, where it would probably be very well-lit, and Ignis’s white shirt might look practically transparent. 

“I have a headache,” he said. “Maybe - tomorrow?”

“Okay,” Ignis said, and smiled at him. He came close and put his hand on Noct’s forehead and Noct closed his eyes. Ignis’s hand felt warm, reassuring, and he pressed into the touch. “You don't feel like you're getting sick. You want to stay on the couch and watch movies today? I'll make soup.”

Noct stayed on the couch and watched movies, with a soft woollen blanket draped over him Ignis had fetched from the linen closet in the hall and Noct hadn't even known was there. Ignis made lentil and bacon soup, spicy and filling, and then he sat on the couch and watched movies too, without complaining when Noct snuck his feet onto Ignis’s lap. 

Ignis stayed over that evening, in case Noct really was ill, although Noct’s headache was totally gone. In the morning Noct even started to think he might be well enough to go to the museum. 

Ignis emerged from the guest room in the fresh set of clothes he kept there (although he hadn't, Noct noticed, put the waistcoat back on) and went straight to the kitchen, dropping an enormous amount of ground Ebony into the coffee machine. Noct paused the game he was playing, still lounging around in his sleep clothes, and watched Ignis nimbly getting out a cup and saucer, a silver spoon and tiny cubes of brown sugar, the little coffee ritual that always made Ignis relax. He was relaxing now: Noct could see his shoulders coming down from around his ears, broader than ever in the white shirt. He said, “Can I have some coffee?”

Ignis smiled at him over his shoulder and said, “You don't drink coffee.”

“I could drink coffee,” Noct said. He probably could. It was an acquired taste, right? He could acquire it. He could go with Ignis to the fancy shop where Ignis bought his coffee and had conversations with the sales people where they were all like, ooh, floral notes, and Noct could just smell burning. 

“Okay,” Ignis said, and reached up to get another cup and saucer out. “Whatever you'd like, Noctis.”

The video game exhibition was pretty good, but it was better the way Ignis stuck close, and listened carefully when Noct explained to him about how this RPG worked or that shooter, and clapped when Noct got picked to go up and play with one of the museum people in a demo and won three battles one after another. It was a pretty nice weekend. 

***

The Saturday after that brought the shirt again, and the part on the other side, maybe gelled down a little less firmly than usual but otherwise no new changes. Noct examined Ignis at length, covertly, and was satisfied of it. 

The Saturday after that, Ignis messaged Noct and asked if Noct would mind if Ignis just came around on Sunday, as he had some things to do. Noct lied that he didn't mind at all. 

The Saturday after _that_ , Ignis didn't even ask. Just messaged and said, he'd be by on Sunday. 

Which was fine. Noct stayed in on Saturday and got ahead on his reading for school, highlighting his ancestors in yellow every time they showed up in his history textbook. 

***

“Are you having fun?” Noct asked, staring at the side of Ignis’s face. 

Ignis looked up at him and back down at the button he was sewing back on Noct’s school blazer.

“Not with that,” Noct said. “And I said I was sorry. At school. Are you having fun at school.”

“I know you did,” Ignis said. “They don't fix these buttons on tightly enough at the manufacturer, it's ridiculous.” He made the face that meant they'd have been getting one of Ignis’s cross letters, if only Ignis weren't very responsible about who he wrote to on his palace-headed notepaper, because it always made people panic and fall over themselves to fix things. 

Noct waited patiently for another minute after that and then burst out, “Are you having fun at _school_ , Ignis.”

“Oh, I didn't think you were really…” Ignis said absently. He looked up from his mending and whatever he saw on Noct’s face made him surprised. “Well, I… yes, thank you, Noctis. The classes I'm taking are very challenging, but I'm learning a lot. It's more self-directed study than I'm used to, but that means more freedom to pursue the things I'm interested in. Things that will be useful for you.”

Noct started to fidget with the collar of his blazer, lying on the table in front of him, and Ignis stuck his needle in his mouth to reach over and take it gently out of his hands. 

“Things that'll be useful for us,” Noct said quietly, staring at the table. Because that was what it was about, still, wasn't it; when Noct was king, when his dad was dead and Noct was king, and Ignis would be at his side, like he always had. 

“Yes,” Ignis said and when Noct dared to glance back up Ignis was looking at him with serious dimmed-green eyes. “For us, yeah.”

That kind of killed the conversation. It wasn't what Noct had meant, at all. He wanted to know who Ignis was meeting, what he talked to them about, did he go to parties, had he picked up new hobbies: what he was doing in all the giant stretches of time he used to spend with Noct and now spent doing gods knew what. 

But he didn't have the heart to get back to it now. He splayed out his legs under the table, kicked Ignis first by accident and then again, more gently, leaving their shins pressed together. 

“I spoke to Gladio on Thursday,” Ignis said, fake-cheerily. “He's going to start picking you up after school a couple of times a week, take you out for some driving practice.”

“Oh,” Noct said. He'd turned seventeen a couple of months ago, but he hadn't had any lessons yet: his dad had told him he'd like to teach him, father to son, man to man, and Noct had been waiting. “Yeah, great.”

“Noctis...” Ignis said.

Noctis drew a pattern on the table, watching a spark follow his finger and fade away, and said, “Can you make lasagne for dinner?”

“Certainly,” Ignis said, tied off his thread, and cut it with his little sewing scissors. 

***

It'd be way more fun to learn from Gladio, anyway. Gladio had been taught to drive at the military academy, so he knew all sorts of tricks and manoeuvres he could show Noct, and his car was epic, an armoured SUV in matte black. 

Gladio showed up in a four-door sedan that looked like he'd driven it straight from the junkyard. He looked ridiculous, enormous behind the wheel, and he said, “Dream on, princess,” when Noct mentioned the tricks, his voice eager with fading hope, although not unkindly. 

Prompto came up behind him and said, “Hey, what's going on?” He bent down and peered into the car, and jumped when he saw Gladio grinning back at him. 

“Are you okay?” Noct said. He reached up and ran fingers over where Prompto had just hit his head on the doorframe, but there was no bump. 

“Yeah,” Prompto mumbled, sneaking glances back at Gladio, who'd now leaned over to the passenger side to talk to them, bare bicep in his sleeveless muscle shirt visibly bulging where he'd planted his hand on the seat: Noct didn't know how he wasn't cold. 

“You're that kid Noct hangs around with? Prom, right?”

“Yes sir!” Prompto said. 

“You don't have to call him sir,” Noct said, nudging him. 

“Can you drive?” Gladio said. 

“No,” Prompto said. The sir hung on the air, audibly unspoken, a faint embarrassment and apology behind it. Noct knew that Prompto’s family didn't even have a car; he took the bus to school and his mom took the bus to her jobs. 

“Get in the car, kid,” Gladio said, and reached to unlock the doors so Prompto could climb in back. “You're gonna learn too.”

***

Ignis actually managed to show up on Saturday the next week, which Noct tried not to be pleased about. Ignis was supposed to show up. Showing up was practically Ignis’s job. 

He was wearing blue jeans. Noct was definitely not pleased about that. They looked a little weird, like maybe Ignis had ironed them, but they showed his long legs even more than the shirt had, the denim nearly clinging to the muscles of his thighs. Ignis had always been so professionally dressed and seeing him in more casual clothes showed him for what he really was, a fighter trained and honed almost as much as the military, broad and powerful. It was weird, too, not seeing him in any black at all; nothing that marked him as anything to do with the royal family, to do with Noct.

“You're wearing jeans,” Noct said, redundantly. He could hear a little note of helpless whining in his voice and he cleared his throat to make it go away. “I've never seen you in jeans.”

“It's no big deal,” Ignis said. His ears were a faint pink. “I don't know why you have to keep commenting on everything, Noctis. It's impolite.”

“You keep changing everything,” Noct said. “Although not… are you just changing one thing at a time? Is there a spreadsheet?”

“Noctis,” Ignis said in his admonishing tone. He'd brought back the school uniforms he'd taken away the previous weekend for dry-cleaning and he busied himself gathering them up in his arms and disappearing into Noct’s room to hang them up. The tails of the white shirt flapped distractingly over his ass as he went and Noct glared after it, feeling hot and unsettled and cross. 

Ignis hadn’t denied it. 

Which meant this whole looking different thing - this _changing_ was a Project. And that meant it _wouldn't stop_. Ignis would just change and change and change until he decided the Project was done and by then Noct probably wouldn't even recognise him in a crowd. 

“What are you playing?” Ignis said when he came back. 

“A game,” Noct said. He knew he sounded surly, but he genuinely didn't mean to; he was barely even aware of what he was doing, Crownsguard Warrior was so old and he'd played it through so many times. 

Ignis came and sat on the couch behind him. His leg brushed against Noct’s side; Ignis muttered, “Sorry,” and shuffled over a little, and Noct didn't think, just followed so they were back to touching, Ignis’s shin a warm bony line against him. Ignis didn't move away again. 

“Here,” Noct said. He didn't really think Ignis would take it. Ignis never played with him - he thought video games were either boring or just pointless, Noct wasn't sure which - but there was a spare controller lying around anyway. Prompto came back to Noct’s after school a couple of nights a week now, usually, and it was just easier to leave stuff out for both of them to use. 

Ignis took it and said, “What are we doing?”

“Fighting the empire,” Noct said, ignoring Ignis’s slightly appalled silence. He liked this game; when he'd been younger he'd liked that there was a King to defend, and sometimes he was on screen, in the distance but looking a bit like Noct’s dad. 

He got up on the couch next to Ignis, sitting close enough to reach over and talk him through how to play, pointing out the buttons and combinations, watching the way Ignis got those little creases between his eyes with concentration. Sitting up like this, they were touching along their whole bodies, not just leg and side. It was nice. 

Ignis lasted nearly an hour playing the game, manfully pretending to be interested. He was a quick learner, so he got good at it pretty fast, and Noct resolved to try to find something he might like more, maybe something that was less about shooting everything and more about puzzles and strategy. Then Ignis would feel like he was working, and not wasting his time playing; he’d like that. 

Ignis made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, and Noct put potato chips in a bowl to go with them, and poured soda into glasses, helping.

“You want to play some more?” he said. He had some homework he was supposed to be doing, and he'd meant to ask Ignis for help with his biology, but it seemed like it could wait. 

“Why don't we play a game I pick?” Ignis suggested, only sounding a little desperate. 

“Okay,” Noct said doubtfully. “If you look through the ones I have I guess I could tell you about them and you can pick.”

“Not a video game,” Ignis said.

“What then?” Noct said. He took a bite of his grilled cheese. It was delicious, just at the level of viscosity he preferred. 

Ignis was banging around in the kitchen drawers. “Cards,” he said triumphantly and showed Noct the pack he'd found, grubby and if Noct remembered right missing the charm of spears. “You've played card games before?”

“I guess,” Noct said. “That deck’s missing a card, I think.”

Ignis rifled through them in a way like he worked in a casino. The cards looked small in his hands, which were big, broad, capable.

A bit of cheese oozed out of Noct's sandwich and burned him and he dropped it on his plate in reaction. 

“You’re correct, but it's only missing one,” Ignis said. “We can play without and I'll bring new ones next time. It doesn't really matter for the game I have in mind.”

“What game do you have in mind?” Noct said, interested despite himself. There was a glint in Ignis’s eye that said he was pleased with himself, which hardly ever happened. 

“Do you know striker?” Ignis said.

“No,” Noct said. He knew a few card games, or half-knew them, from sitting on his dad’s knee when he was a kid and ‘helping’, which usually led to his dad good-naturedly losing to Clarus or Cor or both. 

“It's popular in the citadel just now,” Ignis said. “Here's how you play.”

His instructions were precise and clear, as they always were, and Noct grasped about half of them, as he usually did: he'd pick them up when he was playing, through the fingers instead of through the ears. 

“Good,” Ignis said, after they’d played a practice round through with Ignis’s quiet guidance on Noct’s hand. “Ready to play for real?”

“Yeah,” Noct said. It was a pretty fun way to spend an hour, it turned out, and there was plenty of time to talk as well; he even got his biology help, and Ignis told him about the research he was doing in the Lucis archives on elemental magic. Noct could picture it, Ignis with his glasses pushed right up the bridge of his nose, bent over the books and even older scrolls of the royal records, making notes without even looking where he was writing. It was a soothing image.

***

“Do you know striker? The card game?” he asked Gladio, the next time Gladio picked them up for driving lessons.

“What’s that?” Prompto said.

“Watch the _road_ , fuck,” Gladio said, making a visible effort to stop himself grabbing the wheel. Noct was hanging in between their seats from the back, watching what Prompto was doing and chatting, and Gladio put a hand on his forehead and shoved him back, gently. Noct rebounded onto the seat and Gladio said, “Put your seatbelt on, Noct.”

“I’m getting better,” Prompto said, sounding crushed. 

“Ain’t putting you in for your test yet, that’s for sure,” Gladio said. “Yeah, Noct, I know it. Why?”

“Ignis taught it to me this weekend,” he said.

Gladio laughed. “Oh yeah? Yeah, Iggy’s good at striker. He’s taken money off half the citadel playing it.”

“Ignis has?” Noct said. He was only with Gladio and Prompto, so he didn’t bother to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“Sure,” Gladio said. “You know how he is, if he’s gonna do something, he’s gonna do it perfectly.” 

“I want to learn!” Prompto said.

Gladio shrugged. “Sure, I guess. We can go for food after this, it’s easy to learn, just hard to play good. Okay, kid, pull over. Noct’s turn.”

***

Ignis cancelled the following Saturday, again, and arrived on Sunday wearing a soft green jacket over his shirt, and bright red sneakers under his jeans. He’d gelled his hair and it stuck up from his head like a little bristly hedgehog, and he was frowning, poking at his phone as he came through the door, laden with bulging cloth grocery bags.

“Good morning, Noctis,” he said. “I was going to make a pork dish I found a recipe for this week, but we’ve been asked to dinner today with your father.” He dropped the bags in the kitchen and looked down at his outfit, dismay stamped all over his face. “I had no idea… I’m not dressed appropriately for an audience with the King.”

“Forget the jeans, you’re going to go see my dad with that hair?” Noct demanded. He wore jeans to go see his dad all the time, and anyway if it was dinner Ignis’s legs would be under the table. Noct would have to look at his hair _all afternoon_. The hairstyle made his eyes look bigger somehow, drew attention to the height of Ignis’s cheekbones and his smooth skin and his wide, full mouth.

“I suppose not,” Ignis said. “I’m not sure why he wants to see both of us. Have you - has he said anything? Has anyone said anything to you?”

“No,” Noct said. An immediate summons like this one usually meant he was in trouble, although Dad didn't really invite Ignis to tellings-off unless Ignis was in trouble too, and Noct could count the number of times that had happened in the last decade on his hand. On two fingers, to be specific. 

“You’re right though,” Ignis said. “I can’t go looking like this.”

“You came here looking like that,” Noct said petulantly. “Just wash it out. It washes out, right?”

It did wash out. Ignis disappeared to borrow Noct’s shower, and when he reappeared he looked like old Ignis again, clearly having found some stuff he’d left in the closet, right down to the way he’d parted his hair and the careful shininess of the buttons on his waistcoat.

It looked weird on him. It was pretty much the way he’d looked for the last seven or eight years, up until this last few months, and it looked weird on him. Like he was squashed back into the sedate uniform and could’ve been anyone at the palace, not like the Ignis who’d been starting to come around and laugh with Noct and talk to him about stuff.

“Are you ready to go?” Ignis said, throwing the abandoned ingredients in the fridge and looking for where he’d dropped the car keys when he’d come in all stressed.

Noct looked down at the black combats he’d put on ready for a day hanging around the apartment, and the t-shirt with the logo of his favourite band, from when Gladio had taken him to one of their concerts in Insomnia. It had a stain on it where Noct had dropped his breakfast toast. “Yeah,” he said.

Noct and Ignis stood by habit when Dad came into the private dining room. Ignis bowed respectfully and Noct dropped back down into his seat and slouched and tried not to look at the contraption the King was wearing on his leg and how slow it made him walk, or notice that he had a temporary brace around one wrist.

“Hello, boys,” Dad said, which didn’t sound like Noct was about to get yelled at, but he’d been mistaken about that before. Dad flipped out his cloak behind him - he was wearing full armour, like he thought the empire might invade through the copper tureen one of the kitchen staff was uncovering on the middle of the table - and sat, and Ignis sat too.

“How’s school, Ignis?” was Dad’s opener, and Noct watched Ignis sweat over his tomato soup and then be basically unable to start on his steak while Dad questioned him mercilessly about his thoughts on where Accordo had gone wrong in the climactic battle of their long, painful fall to Niflheim. Noct nudged the toe of his sneaker down on Ignis’s shiny shoe in solidarity, and when Ignis shifted slightly to make it easier for him he left their ankles pressed together.

“And how’s your school, Noctis?” Dad said, just when Ignis had finally relaxed into his subject and started to lecture. Noct hadn’t minded; Ignis could be pretty interesting when he talked about military stuff.

“Fine,” Noct said. He ate a fry.

“How’s class?” Dad said.

“Fine,” Noct said.

“How’s training with Gladiolus?” Dad said.

“Fine,” Noct said.

“Are you going to eat any of that salad?” Dad said.

Noct looked at the salad. It was green and leafy and disgusting. “No,” he said.

“Is he eating any vegetables?” Dad said, to Ignis.

“Last Sunday he ate a stew with carrots blended into the sauce, eggplant chunks, and turnips,“ Ignis said.

“You told me that was potato,” Noct said, hurt.

“There was potato,” Ignis said. “And turnip.”

Dad said, “Hmm. Noct, are there any girls at school? In your class?”

“Yeah,” Noct said. There were lots of girls at school.

There was a pause. “I meant, girls you like,” Dad said patiently. “Are you dating, Noct?”

“No,” Noct said. He wound his feet around the legs of his chair and hunched in, feeling hot and mad.

“Noctis is still getting a lot of attention at school because of his status,” Ignis said hastily. “His teachers have assured me they have measures in place to reduce disruption.”

Noct sneaked a look at him. He hadn’t known that. He’d known, obviously, that all the girls at school were weird about him: that they talked where they thought he couldn’t hear about being a princess, and going to parties as Noct’s girlfriend, and how great it would be, like Noct’s mom hadn’t been killed by bearing the heir of Lucis. Like it would be _fun_.

“I see,” Dad said. “You wanted to go to a regular school, Noct. If it’s too much -”

“It’s not,” Noct said. He had Prompto now, and - he didn’t like the other kids, really, but it was nice to be near them. Hear the stuff they talked about, go out after school and at the weekend and do the kinds of things he knew they did. He’d much rather have that, and put up with the whispers and giggles, than be locked up in the citadel with tutors droning on at him about whatever Dad thought he needed to know.

“But perhaps you need more company,” Dad said, persevering. “Did you know Councillor Enrisha has a granddaughter about your age? She’s an accomplished girl, by all reports. And pretty.”

“Councillor Enrisha’s granddaughter pushed Noct over at the palace solstice celebration,” Ignis said coldly.

“Yeah, when I was nine,” Noct said. “I’m over it, Ignis, really.”

“I’ll have her call you, then,” Dad said. “Or text. Whatever it is you do.”

Noct wasn’t totally sure he’d agreed to _that_. But sure, whatever. If she texted him he could just ignore it. He did that with a lot of texts he got from people at school.

“Anyway,” Dad said. He nodded over at the server waiting quietly in the corner and a few moments later Noct had a chocolate mousse in front of him, while Ignis and Dad got small cups of strong, bitter-smelling coffee. “That’s not why I asked you to dine with me today.”

Ignis drew in a deep breath opposite Noct and leaned back in his chair. He was too well-trained to betray worry on his face, but Noct felt for him with his foot again anyway. Ignis had stretched out his long legs to Noct’s side of the table and Noct touched their calves together gently.

“It's time you learned more about the Lucii, Noctis,” Dad said quietly. “About the magic that runs through our bloodline, how to wield it.”

The dessert was really rich, almost sickly. Noct stirred it around and around, the lightness of the mousse getting heavier, almost custardy. “Okay,” he said. 

“I'm perfectly well,” Dad said. Noct couldn't help his gaze drawing to the brace on his wrist, and Dad cleared his throat and picked up his coffee, nearly draining it. “Perfectly well, Noct, really. But it's time for you to start learning our magic, as you’ve worked with Gladio to learn our weapons.”

“I said okay,” Noct said. He put the spoon in his mouth and sucked the mousse-soup off it. He glanced up and Ignis was watching him, looking concerned and protective. Ignis offered a tentative smile and Noct took another spoonful of mousse.

“You’ll come every Thursday after school,” Dad decreed. “Starting this week.”

“I’m done eating,” Noctis said, pushing his chair away from the table. “Can I go?”

“Noctis…” Dad said and Noct stared at the table. Dad sighed and said, “Yes. Thank you for coming. I’ll see you on Thursday.”

Ignis sank his coffee hastily and stood up with Noct. “Might I have a moment with you, Ignis?” Dad said, and Ignis sat down again, slowly.

Noct escaped.


	2. Chapter 2

Macha texted the next day, which was more keen - on both his dad’s and Macha’s part - than Noct was really comfortable with.

It said _hey Noctis, Gran gave me your number from your father, how’s things?”_

Things were fine. Noct pushed his phone to the corner of his desk and ignored it.

“What’s that?” Prompto said, when it beeped again. He leaned over from his desk to Noct’s side, tilting dangerously on two chair legs.

“Nothing,” Noct said.

“You’ve got a text,” Prompto said. “It’s from Ignis, right?”

“No,” Noct said, irritated. “It’s just from this girl.”

“A girl?” Prompto said blankly. “What kind of girl?”

“I don’t know, a girl! How many kinds of girls are there?”

“Lots,” Prompto said with conviction, even though he could barely get any of the girls in their class to say hello to him. Or, worse, they said hello to him, and more, and then part-way into the conversation Prompto realised the girls were only talking to him because he was Noct’s friend, when they said, giggling, _so, hey, the prince -_

Prompto never complained about it. He never said anything about it to Noct at all, and Noct wouldn’t know it happened if he didn’t hear it sometimes, because for all people were very interested in him, a lot of the time they didn’t really notice him when he was actually around.

“Just a girl,” Noct said. “She’s a Councillor’s granddaughter. My dad gave her my number.”

“Are you going to text her back?” Prompto said, eyes big with eagerness. He gave the phone a wistful look.

“Maybe,” Noct said. He’d probably have to: someone was sure to ask him about it. “Hey, if I have to go and meet her or whatever, you’ll come, yeah?”

It was a favour asked more than given. Prompto always had something to say. Whoever this girl was could bring a friend, and Noct could bring Prompto, and then he’d hardly have to do anything other than sit there and sometimes smile.

“That’d be okay?” Prompto said, flushing a little.

“Sure,” Noct said.

***

He was hoping his dad would cancel, which happened pretty often when he had plans with Noct, but no such luck: the next Thursday after the dinner Noct had to tell Prompto he couldn’t come over for takeout and games and trudge himself over to the palace. 

They ate dinner first, while Dad yammered on and on and on about the importance of Noct making sure he ate right and slept well and kept himself in tip top physical condition, because presumably the crystal would have a big appetite when it started to eat away at Noct’s strength and life. He didn't really speak during the meal, but then Dad didn't usually need a response to carry on going. 

“Come on,” Dad said sombrely when the dinner dishes had been cleared. “We’re going to it.”

Noct hadn't seen the crystal in years and years. He'd been brought down as a newborn to be presented as the new heir of the crystal bloodline of Lucis. He'd been taken right up to the crystal and scratched carefully with one of the glittering protrusions, for the crystal to taste his blood, so it would know him. He'd cried, apparently, which Noct figured was pretty much what happened when a little baby got cut by a giant crystal. Of course he couldn't remember it but he'd been told about it so many times he could see it in his mind’s eye as easily as if he'd been standing there, a silent observer; he sometimes imagined himself as he was now, hovering over proceedings like the massive avians they got in Duscae. He still had the scratch, a tiny white vertical line on his chest. 

The crystal’s room was bare and black, little more than a cave: it was where the crystal had been discovered or pretty much, and the palace and then the city and then the whole country had been built up around it, on top of it. The crystal threw off its own light. Noct did occasionally listen when people talked to him, and he knew that was impossible, but as he stood in front of it, it was absolutely clear it was true. 

“This is it,” Dad said softly. He put his hand on the crystal, casually, like it was an old friend he hadn't seen for a while. He shut his eyes and his face smoothed out, all the tiredness and strain and worry of the kingdom falling away until he looked… not young. Until he looked the age he actually was. Noct couldn't understand it. It was because of the crystal - because of the Wall - that Dad was sick. If it made him feel better, too, that was just the crystal giving his dad back what was already his, but expecting gratitude for it, as well. 

“Touch it, Noct,” Dad said, turning to him encouragingly. In the ethereal light of the crystal he looked weird, unfamiliar. 

“No,” Noct said. He realised he'd stepped back, as well, as if it might grow spindly crystal arms and reach for him. 

“Noctis,” Dad said. “Noct, this is your birthright. Our family, our blood - this is the crystal of the kings of the Lucii. _Touch it_.”

Noct swallowed, stepped forward, and touched it. 

It didn't feel like anything, at first. Just cool and hard and sharp under his fingers. 

And then, slowly, the thin white scar on his chest began to warm. Prickling uncomfortable heat and Noct realised his dad's hand was _glowing_ , an eerie blue, and so was Noct’s, and he pulled his hand back like it was burnt and cradled it to his chest. 

“You'll get used to it,” Dad said and Noct realised - he could feel it, still. Under his fingertips. In his scar, blood calling to blood. In his _mind_ , whispering -

“Dad?” he said. He crept closer, needing warmth, and Dad turned to him, smooth as butter, and pulled a dagger out of the air. He held it out, between them, and Noct froze, trying to watch the dagger and his dad at the same time. 

“Take it,” Dad commanded and Noct shook his head, a tiny motion. He couldn't summon up any real resistance, it was still whispering, the glow of the crystal was getting stronger, pure white light and hot. 

“Now, Noctis,” Dad said. “It's waiting for you. Haven’t you felt it?”

“ _No_ ,” Noct said.

“Take it!” Dad said and Noct closed his eyes and reached out.

He didn’t take the dagger out of his dad’s hand. He drew it out of the air, and he didn’t know how he knew it would be there waiting for him, only that he did, and it was, his fingers closing around the ghost of a handle that was abruptly the real thing, fitting into the shape of his palm as perfectly as if it had been made for him.

“Good,” Dad said and Noct looked at him. The dagger in his hand looked as real as it felt, and when he tested the blade, lightly, it marked a thin stinging line of red on the soft pad of his index finger. “Try again.”

***

The elevator up to Noct’s apartment seemed to take ages. He rested his throbbing head against the side; the cool steel seemed to make the world a little more solid, seemed to make the disconcerting feeling that he could twitch reality aside like a curtain and pull things out of thin air a little less alarming.

There was a light on in his apartment. He stared at it, sluggish, and Ignis appeared in the doorway. He looked a little rumpled, like maybe he’d been sitting on the couch, and there was an inkstain on his cheek.

“Hi,” Noct said.

“Good evening,” Ignis said. He came to Noct and Noct let himself be chivvied straight into his bedroom. Ignis stood over him to strip his blazer off his shoulders and knelt to take his shoes off and Noct found himself clutching Ignis’s shoulder as he did, at his warm stability. Ignis’s breathing was coming a little fast. Noct could feel it on his hand when Ignis turned a little into Noct’s touch; Ignis was wearing the white shirt again, open down his throat and below his collarbone, and Noct’s hand brushed the soft skin of his neck.

He gave a little groan and lay down, groping for his pillows, and a moment later he was being softly covered up by the thick duvet. Ignis turned on a lamp and turned off the main light as he went out.

“It’s Thursday,” he said muzzily, when Ignis came back with dry crackers and juice, which he prodded Noct to eat even though they tasted dusty in his mouth, before he produced two painkillers for Noct to take. “You’re not here on Thursdays anymore.”

“I wanted to be here today,” Ignis said softly. He laid a damp washcloth over Noct’s forehead. It felt blissful and Noct reached up to adjust it, settled it over his aching eyes and sighed his weight back heavily into the bed.

“Do you have to go?” Noct said. It seemed okay to ask, from behind the darkness of the flannel.

“No, Noctis,” Ignis said, and Noct felt his weight dip the side of the bed, curled a little around Ignis from beneath his covers. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”

***

When Noct woke up, he found a note from Ignis that said he’d called Noct in sick, so Noct didn’t have to go to school, if he didn’t want.

There was more juice in the fridge, and a family-sized bag of potato chips, and Ignis had left fresh pastries chilling in the fridge with instructions of how high to turn the oven and how long to leave them in.

Noct baked three pastries and ate them all, then went back to bed and didn’t wake up again until nearly four in the afternoon.

***

That meant he didn't sleep much on Friday night and he was already awake when Ignis arrived bright and early, eating cereal at the table and looking at the assignment his chemistry teacher had emailed over. 

He looked at Ignis for a while. Then he closed his mouth and finished chewing his soggy cereal, and said, “Where's your glasses?”

“I'm experimenting with contact lenses,” Ignis said, in a small voice.

“I don't like it,” Noct said reflexively. He didn't. Ignis’s eyes, without the glasses, looked big and vulnerable and a bright shiny green, and it made Noct feel a funny, fluttering heaviness in his tummy.

“Yes, thank you, Noctis,” Ignis said. “How are you feeling? I understand you missed school yesterday.”

“You said I could,” Noct said, annoyed. 

“I know I did. I didn't mean it like that. Are you okay?”

“I guess,” Noct said. “I slept a lot.”

“Your father informed me the first few months would likely be difficult.”

Noct said, “The first few _months_? Ignis, I can't…” he stirred his cereal around the bowl for a second, watching it get soggy, and then it burst out of him. “I don't want to, Ignis, I didn't like it.”

Ignis paused in putting the coffee machine on. Noct could only see his profile, head bowed and face set. “I know,” Ignis said quietly. “We have to, Noct. We have to.”

He sounded desperately sorry, like he would have taken Noct away from it if he could. He couldn't. Noct knew he couldn't. 

He thought of Cor, suddenly. Who was just always there, since Noct was born, part of the furniture of the citadel, always his father’s shadow as Clarus was his shield. How he'd used to joke about the King getting old and frail, until his dad really had started getting old and frail, way before his time, and Cor had stopped joking and started watching his dad like he was counting down the hours in his head.

“I want to stay in this weekend,” he said. He wanted warmth, and quiet, and nobody touching him he didn't know. 

“Yes, of course,” Ignis said. 

***

“But you’re going to learn it,” Prompto said. The ball rattled down the machine and plopped down as his hands lay limp on the controls and he jumped at the noise and cursed. “I mean… the Wall, and your dad… like, if Niflheim came again. You’re going to learn it, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Noct said. He shouldn't have brought it up to Prompto; it wasn't fair. He did the only thing he could think of to distract Prompto, even though he didn't want to talk about it: “Hey, Macha texted me again.”

“Yeah?” Prompto said brightly. Noct nudged him over and they started a new game, with one handle each. “What did she say? Are you going to go on a date? Are you going to kiss her?”

“No,” Noct said, trying not to squirm. “I don't know, maybe we'll meet up for coffee or something.” That was casual, right? That was what people did. “You'll still come, yeah? You said you would.”

“Sure!” Prompto said, any anxiety gone as if it'd never been, sunshine rising on his face like the gleam of his hair under the lights of the arcade. “I can't wait.”

***

He thought about it, that night, or tried to. He hadn't met up with Macha yet but he'd gone online and found pictures of her at formal events with her family, smiling prettily next to the Councillor in a nice dress. 

He tried to think about looking at her in her nice dress, kissing her pretty smile. Touching her. Maybe her touching him. Kissing him back. 

His cock was plump and warm in his hand and he touched himself gently, more exploring than really jerking off. It didn't take much to get him hard and he closed his hand tight around the shaft and rubbed his thumb over the head, feeling slick pre-come start to smooth the way. Ecstatic pressure built in his chest, gut, balls, and he let out a strangled moan and pinched at his nipple with his other hand, feeling the hard little point of it sensitive under the very tips of his fingers. 

He couldn't hold it in his mind, the image like the tide receding from the shore. His pleasure was always more formless, deeply sensual, nothing more than the hungry sensation of heat and attention, the thrill of freefalling and the security of the ground under his feet, the fractured sensation of it shaking through his body. 

He should've been able to think about Macha. He should've wanted to, and he rolled onto his stomach and yelled into the pillow and rubbed off against the bed, furious and horny, thoughts shimmering and breaking around him into that same feeling of being _seen_ , indulged, and he was still moving, helpless, deep within it, and he came with the lingering echo of hands on his skin, big, warm. 

Orgasm had barely shivered out of him and Noct cried out and seized, shaking uncontrollably as crystalline lightning struck through him, pleasure more intense and more thorough than he'd ever known. 

It seemed to go on for ages, more and longer and everything. Finally it released him, wrung out and sweating, and as he inched over onto his side and curled up he could still feel it, settling under his skin, see the blue fizz of magic on him waiting. 

***

Noct hit the floor for about the millionth time that evening, and at Gladio's fond, “You’re done,” he groaned in relief and stayed down, until Gladio came over and dropped a towel on his head and a bottle of water on his chest. 

Gladio looked as lively as ever, like he could've gone another ten rounds and then eaten a Mag for lunch. He poured half a bottle of water over his own face, whipping his hair around like he was in an ad, while Noct shoved his sweaty bangs off his forehead resentfully. 

Gladio said, “Oh, hey, Ignis says you’re doing magic stuff with your dad? We should think about that. It’s a different battle style, being able to warpstrike. I’ve been talking to the glaivemasters about it.”

“Talking to the glaivemasters,” Noct echoed, only half listening while he wiped down. Then, “When did Ignis tell you that?”

“In the bar,” Gladio said. “Earlier this week.”

“You’ve been going out drinking with Ignis?” Noct said. His idea of Ignis burning the midnight oil every night, sitting alone in a library and poring industriously over a giant leather-lined book - like Ignis didn't have a tablet and a laptop for his work like everyone else, but that was what Ignis did in Noct’s imagination - turned topsy-turvy in his mind and became, much more unpleasantly, an image of Ignis propping up a bar, drink in hand and shirt unbuttoned rakishly low, smiling at Gladio with his eyes flirtatiously lowered behind his total lack of glasses. Or smiling at whoever. Anyone. Anyone _else_. 

“Sure,” Gladio said. He got a cloth and oil and Noct watched as he stripped down the greatsword in thirty seconds flat and started to clean it methodically.

“What do you even talk about?” Noct demanded.

“You.”

“Really?”

“No, you little ingrate,” Gladio said amiably. “I don’t know, we just talk.”

That didn't seem very likely. As far as Noct knew, they had nothing in common. Actually as far as Noct knew, they didn't even particularly like one another. 

“Oh,” he said. He lay back down and then bolted back upright as he was hit in the face by an oily, dirty cloth. “Hey!”

“Clean your weapon,” Gladio said. “I ain’t doing it for you.”

Noct glared at him, but he reached for the sword he’d been using and started to clean it. Gladio was right: just two lessons he’d had now with his dad, and he could feel the arsenal, waiting for him, almost jealous of the practice blade.

***

Ignis didn’t come over on Saturday, yet again, but this week Noct didn’t mind. He had a plan, and an excuse - if it wasn’t like Ignis was working, then it wasn’t like Noct showing up was really bothering him - and most importantly, he had an address. Drant in his dad’s office hadn’t really wanted to give Ignis’s address to Noct, and he’d had to eventually gently remind him that Noct was the prince, and Ignis was his adviser, and if Noct wanted to know where Ignis lived, because who knew, maybe Noct wanted to send him something… well, he’d got the address, anyway.

It was getting on for evening, darkening blue and stars coming out. Noct squinted up and with the ease of long practice he picked out the ripple and gleam of the Wall easily as it curved over the city; the university was a little ways out from the citadel, at an angle where the Wall was more obvious. Not like the palace, where the Wall at its highest point was far enough into the clouds for the inhabitants to forget it was there. The ones it wasn’t slowly killing, anyway.

Ignis lived in one of the smaller dorm buildings. It was purpose-built and modern: it looked squat and ugly and like Ignis would hate it, used as he was to the soaring grace of the citadel and its views onto some of the oldest, most classic buildings in the city. It was really busy, too, windows open and chatter and laughter and noise spilling out, people coming and going in a constant stream through the front door and lounging around in groups on a grassy area, too scrubby to really be called a garden. 

Noct slunk over to the door. He blended in, he thought, even though he was self-conscious about being shorter than a lot of the guys. Sure enough, when he loitered for a few moments and slipped in the door a pair of girls had just come out barely gave him a glance.

Ignis’s room was on the top floor. Noct took the stairs, trying to look totally natural and like he knew where he was going. 

The corridor was as noisy as the outside had been, doors open between the bare white walls and people hanging around in them, conversations being shouted between rooms. It smelled of takeout and too many people and a weird sweet smell that, slightly shocked and trying not to be, Noct identified after a minute as pot. He looked at the numbers on the doors: Ignis’s must be at the other end and he hunched his shoulders and hurried along, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. 

He didn't get to Ignis’s room. 

He glanced into one of the rooms he passed. It was a small kitchen, and his eyes picked out Ignis in a kitchen easily and with relief. 

Ignis was leaning on a table, wearing his jeans and white shirt and no shoes or socks, laughing down at a young woman grimacing in frustration over a thick textbook. Another girl was sitting next to her, tapping away at a tablet, and there was a guy maybe a little older than Ignis, standing over a stove and stirring something spicy-meaty-smelling. 

Noct felt a flush rise immediately, the inevitable obvious pink spread of it prickling hot on his throat and cheeks. He felt awkward as fuck, young and stupid, and this was the worst idea he'd ever had, coming to bother Ignis here. Ignis actually _knew people_ , people who were clearly much more on his wavelength than Noct was. Noct didn't think he'd ever heard Ignis laugh like that, loud and easy, like he wasn't - like he wasn't _working_. 

He would've made it without being noticed. He'd only really paused and glanced inside, except then. 

The cooking guy dipped into his pan and came out with a steaming spoonful he cupped his hand under carefully as he carried it the couple of steps over to Ignis, who opened his mouth for it, smiled and nodded when he'd tasted it, and the guy smiled back and used his free hand to catch Ignis’s chin so he could lean in and kiss him. 

Noct just stood there. He felt cold, as shocked and numb as the first moment of his sword trembling in his hands after defending one of Gladio’s two-armed strikes, his chest as tight and his breath as short as it too. Gods, he shouldn't have come. He shouldn't have come anywhere near but he couldn't seem to leave either. He felt bolted down by misery, stomach and feet too heavy to even move. 

“Hi, can we do something for you?” the girl working on her tablet said, politely but curiously, gazing at him, and Noct jolted, felt the prickling flare of magic at the base of his skull like an animal scenting the air. He could see recognition spreading over her face, familiar and dreaded. 

They all looked at him. Ignis, his friends, his - the other boy, and Noct shrank into his jacket and shook his head, unable to find any words.

“Noctis? Is everything okay?” Ignis said, stepping forward and reaching out a hand to him, and he looked… transformed. He looked like the serious person Noct knew, the tiny furrows between his eyebrows back, laughter silenced. 

“I’ve got to go,” Noct said, words tumbling out, and as he turned to fling himself back down the hall he heard the guy say, “Was that Noctis as in Crown Prince Noctis?” and he squeezed his eyes shut and stumbled down the corridor fast as he could make his feet take him, slamming back into the stairwell.

“Noctis!” Ignis yelled behind him, before he’d gone more than a floor, and Noct startled, missed a step and grabbed wildly for the bannister, missed that too and was only saved by Ignis grabbing the back of his jacket and keeping him upright.

Which meant Ignis was right there. Noct refused to turn and look at him and Ignis said again, “Noctis,” softly, not like he was mad about Noct coming to find him, or was sorry Noct was there dragging him back into stupid prince stuff when Ignis was trying to have fun with his friends.

He turned around, but he still couldn’t look up at Ignis. “Sorry,” he said, subdued. His voice threatened to get high and he swallowed it back down. “I didn't mean for your friends…” 

_I didn't know they didn't know about me_ , was what he meant, but he couldn't figure out how to say it without it being totally obvious that he'd taken it for granted Ignis would have mentioned him, that people would know he was at school to learn stuff for being advisor to the future king. 

“I do talk about you,” Ignis said defensively. “Obviously they don't know you're actually the prince. Well, they didn’t. Lots of children were named Noctis after you were born.”

“And who's _he_ ,” Noct blurted, mind stuck on the image of Ignis and that boy, together, kissing so naturally and casually. “Like, you kiss guys now? Who even is he?”

“He's just a friend!” Ignis said. Without his glasses his eyes looked almost sparkling against his bright pink face. “And it's not really - I don't - it's none of your _business_ , Noctis.”

“Whatever,” Noct said, and concentrated every single ounce of will and training and a thousand years of royal power into not sniffling. Since fucking when was everything about Ignis not his business? “Fine. You're busy, I'm going to go. I have homework.”

“Noct,” Ignis said, gently. He hardly ever called Noct that, even though Gladio and Prompto did all the time. He stepped forward and touched Noct on the arm, and he hardly ever did that, either. Noct leaned in, wanting Ignis’s warmth so badly it was pathetic and he didn't even care, and Ignis put his arm around Noct’s shoulders without a word.

“You don’t mind that… with a guy?” Ignis said, tentatively. 

“No,” Noct said. He shuffled closer and pressed harder into Ignis and Ignis relaxed back into him. 

Ignis said, “You want to go out and get dinner?”

“Aren't you eating with him?” Noct said. He really wanted to put his head on Ignis’s shoulder but it seemed like that might make things weird. 

Ignis turned his face and Noct felt his sigh ruffle Noct’s hair. “No,” Ignis said. “I'm not eating with them.”

They didn't discuss it any more. Ignis went back upstairs to get dressed to go out, although he was gone a little longer than it should’ve taken. Noct lurked in the stairwell and smiled weakly at the people who went up or down and gave him dubious looks. Finally Ignis showed back up, flipping his car keys the way he flipped his daggers after a good bout kicking the asses of guards who hadn’t heard yet the prince’s bookish advisor had skills. 

He smiled at Noct when Noct smiled hopefully at him, and drove them to a restaurant, nicer than where they usually went, the kind of place where Ignis wrote things down and then spent a week solid in the kitchen until he came out triumphantly with a perfect recreation of the sauce, although he didn’t do that today. Over dinner Noct went into a long description of the project he was working on for civics class, which usually he wouldn't have even mentioned, and after a while Ignis took over and started talking about the role of the monarchy and the council, as Noct had known he would. 

He didn't think about it until later, and then it was a thought he examined from several different angles. It was kind of insulting that Ignis had thought Noct might not be cool with it - Noct wasn't a kid, he went to school and watched TV, he knew things - but Ignis had asked whether Noct cared that he'd been kissing a guy like he was worried about it. Like it mattered to him what Noct thought. And that was... that was nice.


	3. Chapter 3

Macha seemed like a nice person, but Noct didn’t really know what to say to her, or where to put his face. To help, he kept going back to the counter and getting more coffees and brownies and cookies, but from the way Prompto looked at him every time he came back, kind of agonised and disbelieving, he wasn’t sure it was actually helping. And the table was filling up with plates faster than the kid could bus them.

“This one looks good,” he said hopefully, putting down a plate with red velvet cookies.

“Um… yeah,” Macha said, and gave him a confused smile. 

Her friend, Rizann, reached out and broke off a neat bit of cookie: she was the only one who was actually tasting any of it. “Yeah, pretty good,” she said.

They’d already talked about school, the weather, Noct’s dad, Macha’s grandma, the dog that lived next door to Prompto, the cat that lived two doors down from Prompto on the other side, exams, the weather, public transport, and the weather. It was horrible. Noct didn’t know how anyone dated anyone, or why.

“So what do you guys do outside of school?” Prompto said, soldiering on, apparently perfectly happy. He’d started off pretty much every topic. Apart from the weather; Noct had brought up the weather, the second time, and Macha had been the one to talk about exams.

“We go to the movies,” Rizann said, shrugging, and she and Prompto talked about movies for a couple of minutes, while Noct wondered whether he should go up and get some more snacks. They’d been bringing out lemon and poppyseed muffins while he was paying for the cookies: they hadn’t tried them yet.

“We go to parties sometimes with people from school,” Macha said, when the movies conversation trailed off. “Do you guys like parties?”

“Sure!” Prompto said, at the same time Noct said, “No.” Rizann looked at Macha and then checked the time on her phone, not very subtly.

“We go to parties,” Prompto said, heroically. “We love parties. Right, Noct?”

“Right,” Noct said, hating everything. “Does anyone want a muffin?”

***

“It got a bad write-up in the broadsheets, but I thought the writing was great, lyrical, I don’t so much - Shiv’s sake, Noct! Watch the _road_.” He wagged his finger in Noct’s face and Noct wrinkled his nose and snapped at it.

He said, “I know what I’m doing, I’m a good driver. I was thinking maybe I could have a go in your car,” Noct said, but hope was fading as fast as Gladio’s complexion as Noct made sure he was indicating, checked over his shoulder, and swerved into the next lane.

“You’re not getting behind the wheel of my car,” Gladio said. “Maybe in about four years.”

“Do you think,” Noct said, and now he did watch the road, because he didn’t want to be looking at Gladio’s face. “I could - do you think my dad would let me drive his car?”

He’d been into trains and trucks as a little kid, more than cars, and he’d been probably eight or nine before he really realised that of all the endless cars he was shepherded into, there was one special car for when it was just him and his dad; and Ignis, sometimes, but mostly just him and Dad, his dad driving them himself. Almost never in the city, with its stop-start traffic and angry drivers and risk-taking cyclists; outside, with open roads and the wind in his hair when Dad laughed and indulged Noct when he begged for the roof to be opened to the blazing sun or star-ridden night sky. Dad’s car was the smoothest ride, the fastest, just the two of them safe, everything they needed inside.

“Maybe when you’re not going to try and kill your passengers,” Gladio said. Noct could kind of see in the windshield, blurrily, the look that crossed his own face, mingled regret and chagrin, and he could see Gladio reflected too, when he briefly looked sorry. Gladio said quietly, “Noct, hey. Yeah, I’m sure he will. That thing could do with a test drive, it hasn’t been out since…”

“Since he started needing the leg brace,” Noct said. “Yeah, I know.”

It was rare enough it had taken him a while to realise it had stopped: that occasionally had turned into never. He missed it.

***

Noct had started taking aspirin before he went over to the palace on Thursdays, now: it saved time. They hadn't been down to the crystal again and while he was glad for that, everything was a little more difficult further away from it. 

He was still pulling the dagger out of the air. He'd been pulling the dagger out of the air for _weeks_ and it was getting incredibly fucking dull. 

“I know it seems boring,” Dad said, striving obviously for patience. “But it needs to be natural, Noct, it needs to be as easy and instinctive as picking something up from a table you're standing in front of. Remember when you were younger and just starting to train with Gladio? You complained for ages about the drills, how awful it was doing the same thing all the time. But it's muscle memory now and you use those drills every time you fight. This is the same.”

“There must be something else I can do,” Noct said, trying not to massively roll his eyes. “Just once, even.”

Dad sighed. “All right.” 

He opened his hand and closed it again around the hilt of a rapier. Even from a small distance Noct could see the glint of its razor sharpness. He stepped close, intrigued, and as he peered at it he could make out the ornate decoration of the blade, how lovingly and intricately patterns were worked up and down the steel. 

Dad opened his hand again and it was gone. “Now you,” he said. 

Noct closed his eyes and opened his fingers and thought really hard. He thought about the sword he'd just seen, the detail and reality of it, the way he reached for his dagger and plucked it into existence, how it was a part of him - he called on the magic that he could feel within him all the time now, a wellspring at the base of his spine, vital and warm - he could feel the sword, the weight and comfort of it in his hand -

He opened his eyes. His hand was still empty: anything he'd thought he'd felt there had been imagination, no more. 

“You have yet to grasp even the essentials,” Dad said quietly and Noct set his mouth and gave a quick, sulky nod. “Can you feel the arsenal where the dagger rests until you call upon it? Do you know the patterns of your mind and magic that draw it out of there?”

“Then _teach me_ ,” Noct said. 

“You must be ready to learn!” Dad said and Noct snapped his head up to look at him. Dad turned away, abruptly, and Noct saw just his arm move, as if he was wiping over his face. From the back, his dad looked tired; the proud line of his shoulders slumped, his head bowed, his posture awkward and uneven with his leg unable to bear its full share of his weight. 

“I'm ready to learn,” Noct said, subdued. He thought about it, really concentrated on drawing up his magic, reaching out with it as a limb, a sense, like it was his dad had said and it was easy as stretching out and picking something up off the table. 

And there was - he could feel something bigger, for the first time, as if the blue light of his magic was echoing against a real space, and he bit down on his lip and then the dagger was there in his hand, almost vibrating, easier than the last time he'd done it. 

His dad was watching him, a faint smile on his lips, a touch of troubledness at his brow. Noct offered up the dagger shyly and Dad clapped a hand on his shoulder and rested it there. “Good,” he said softly. “That's good, Noct.”

***

“No,” Noct said, before Ignis had even taken his jacket off. “No way, Ignis. You look awful.”

“It's not one of the better ideas,” Ignis admitted. He took the baseball cap off and regarded it for a moment with a nostalgic little smile. “I should leave it off.”

“You should burn it,” Noct said. 

“Don't be wasteful,” Ignis said. “Anyway, I just borrowed it.” His hair was tousled and soft under the hat, sticking to his forehead a little, looking almost blond: he must have left his usual product out of it. Noct tapped his fingers on the report he was reading, suddenly restless. 

“What are you doing?” Ignis said and Noct flipped the report he was reading so Ignis could read the cover. “Oh, that,” Ignis said, sounding disapproving. “What do you think? I found some of his conclusions about the agricultural base in the north fanciful, frankly, and as for the supply chain into the city, I barely have words.”

Noct looked at the report. “I don't think I got that far yet.”

“You needn't bother,” Ignis said, switching the coffee machine on. “Fararr Tethier wrote a book about six years ago that's more incisive, even if it's a little out of date now, and has more sensible policy recommendations. I'll bring a copy next week. Do you want coffee?”

“No thanks,” Noct said. “Don't you drink coffee in the dorm? You get here like you're dying of thirst.”

“Your coffeemaker is much better,” Ignis said, sounding like it was a pleasant surprise, even though he'd been the one to tell the office that Noct needed a super top of the line coffee machine for the coffee everyone knew Noct didn't even drink. 

“Oh, so that's why you keep coming over,” Noct said. He meant it as a joke and then his voice, horrifyingly, wobbled. 

Ignis paused in his Ebony quest, but he didn't turn around. He said, “Noctis,” in a tone Noct didn't quite know how to read. 

“I think this report isn't too bad,” Noct said hastily. “I thought what he said about, er, irrigation was really good.”

“What he says about irrigation is completely wrongheaded,” Ignis said.

He came up to the table with his coffee and Noct pretended he was totally absorbed in his wrongheaded report. He could feel Ignis’s eyes on him and it made him self-conscious as hell at the same time as a quiet part of him settled, happy to have Ignis’s attention where it belonged. 

“Noctis,” Ignis said again. He was sitting at right-angles on the chair, all the better to stare at Noctis, and Noct almost jumped, then relaxed as Ignis nudged at Noct’s knee with his own. “Noct, you know all this…. university, and the people there, it's not -”

“Not _what_ ,” Noct said, meaning to sound irritated, mature, and hearing it come out as a childish plea for reassurance. He felt like a child again, the despair and loneliness like waiting up for dinner for a father who never came and a mother who'd never been, and he hated the way Ignis’s face crumpled in his peripheral vision like Ignis had heard it that way too. 

“It's just a means to an end,” Ignis said, eventually. “I'll always… I'm coming back, okay?”

“Yeah?” Noct said, hating how desperate for reassurance he sounded, but he _was_ , and he'd never worried before about hiding how he felt from Ignis. 

“Yeah, of course,” Ignis said. He looked awkward, and he could hardly look at Noct, but at least he'd said it. 

“Ignis?” Noct said, after the silence had become a bit weird. 

“Yeah?”

“Whose hat is it?”

“It's Geraind’s hat,” Ignis said reluctantly. “The boy you… met.”

“You should definitely burn it,” Noct muttered. 

“Noctis,” Ignis said reprovingly. But when Noct sneaked a look at him, he was smiling. 

***

“What did you get for question three?” Prompto said.

Noct flipped a page back in his math text. “Four point seven seven.”

“Using cosine?” Prompto said hopefully.

“No,” Noct said. “Tangent. Sorry. You want me to take a look at it?”

Prompto stared at his book glumly and took another bite of the meatloaf Ignis had left in the fridge. “No, it’s okay. I’ll get it.”

“You’re doing well,” Noct said encouragingly. It wasn’t totally true, but Prompto was doing better, at least. He tended to be really good at the stuff he was interested in, and not at all at the things he wasn’t, and math was very definitely in the basket of things he wasn’t.

“You have such good study habits,” Prompto said dismally.

Noct glanced at his bookshelf, which as well as regular books and movies and games held a number of the reports and papers Ignis and his dad’s people had been foisting on him for years, now. “Yeah, well, I started young.”

“How’s your magic training going?” Prompto said. “With the King?”

“It’s okay,” Noct said. “Slow.”

“How does it feel, doing magic?” Prompto said. 

His dinner seemed forgotten. He sounded genuinely interested - and not so much in the magic, but actually in Noct, which was new. Ignis knew an awful lot about magic, he’d made it his business to know, but he treated it like an academic pursuit; Noct didn’t think he’d ever ask how magic felt to Noct.

“Weird,” he said honestly. “It’s getting easier, I guess. I haven’t even done anything yet other than summon this one dagger, over and over.”

“Oh,” Prompto said, pondering. It occurred to Noct that he didn’t even really know how much the public knew about the Lucii magic, and he felt a confused twist in his stomach about how much he was supposed to say, whether he was supposed to lie. Prompto said, “Can you get other stuff?”

“Like what?” Noct said.

“I don’t know,” Prompto said. “Like… I don’t know. Money! You could store stuff in it. You’d never have to carry a wallet again.”

“I guess,” Noct said. He didn’t carry a wallet now; he had a credit card, or there would be someone with him to pick up the cheque, or for places he went a lot they knew him and they sent bills to the palace directly. Even the arcade did that for him and Prompto, they were there so much. He said, “I’ll think about it.”

***

Noct was at a party, and it was terrible.

He’d allowed himself to be towed around by Macha for a while, but after about the twentieth kid who’d said, “Oh, _Noctis_ , er, hi,” and stared at him like maybe he’d summon the armiger right in front of them he’d escaped to the kitchen and was now sitting on the floor in the pantry, playing on his phone.

The keg was just outside, so it wasn’t the safest of places. Noct had had a couple of drinks, and then when he’d started hearing himself get loud he’d stopped, Ignis’s voice echoing seriously in his brain about the dignity of the station of the prince and how Noct needed to not be a giant embarrassment to the throne. His head was still spinning unpleasantly and he felt kind of nauseous and anxious; the pit of his stomach where his magic seemed to live was roiling and uncomfortable, as if the magic was agitating to be let out. He wondered if he’d have to just stay in the pantry forever, because from the racket outside it seemed like everyone else was having a great time and might never leave.

There was a rising argument outside.

“Noct! Hey!” Prompto said, as Noct emerged from the pantry, trying to look like he thought sitting alone in the pantry was a normal party activity. His voice was high and excited and he gave Noct a big drunk beam. The couple of kids who’d been getting at him gave Noct a glance, then another one, slower.

“Prince Noctis,” the girl said, and gave him a flirty smile. “It’s so great you came to the party tonight!”

“We have to go,” he said. “Prom. Hey, Prom. Come here.”

He grabbed Prompto and pulled him out of the first door he saw, which turned out to lead into a garden. The crowd and clamour of the party was spilling out of the open windows, but here it was dark and quiet, nice, and Noct felt his throbbing head start to calm a little.

“Noct,” Prompto said uncertainly and Noct turned to him, steadied his swaying. He was looking pale, suddenly, and then he said, “I don’t feel so good.”

The terribleness continued. Noct patted Prompto’s back awkwardly while he was noisily sick into what was probably Macha’s friend’s mom’s favourite shubbery.

“I don’t feel good,” Prompto said finally, again, and Noct was too slow to stop him lying down on the grass, rubbing his face in the damp coolness of it, and starting to cry.

“It’s okay,” he said. He kind of wanted to cry, too, but he felt like they couldn’t both cry.

“I want to go home,” Prompto said, tearstreaked and smelling lightly of beer and vomit. “Noct, let’s go.”

“Okay,” Noct said. He could call a regular taxi, or call the palace and they’d send someone for him, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted Ignis, simply and powerfully, wanted his cool hands and his judgemental face and even the telling-off he’d probably get.

It wasn’t that late. Not even midnight, although it wasn’t far off. He got his phone out and dialled Ignis.

It rang and rang and then Ignis said, “Noct?” fuzzily, as if he’d been asleep. 

Noct resisted the suspicious desire to ask him whether he was alone and said just, “Can you come get us?”

“What? Where are you?”

“At a party,” Noct said guiltily. There was a certain quality of silence on the other end of the line, which he chose to interpret as Ignis just still waking up. 

“Are you drunk?” Ignis said.

“No!” Noct said, and then, compelled by drunken honesty, “Maybe a bit, but Prom’s pretty bad. He just threw up a lot and now he's lying on the back lawn and he won’t get up.”

“Try to keep him awake,” Ignis ordered. Noct could hear sounds on the other end of the line, Ignis getting out of bed, finding clothes and thumping shoes around. “I'm on my way.”

It was nearly thirty minutes before he got there and by then Noct very definitely had a headache, mainly because Prompto was snoring beside him and the party was still loud and he was chilly and irritated. He’d ducked back into the kitchen when it was nearly empty and got two cups of water. Prompto had drunk his and then sat next to Noct, then leaned on him, carefully like he thought he might get pushed away, and said, “Are you mad?” which Noct was but he’d told Prompto he wasn’t because it wasn’t Prom’s fault, and despite Ignis’s instruction Noct hadn’t had the heart to stop him when he went to sleep on Noct’s shoulder.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. “Are you okay? I’m outside.”

“We’re good,” Noct said, trying not to sound as pitifully relieved as he was. “We’ll come out now.”

He poked and bullied Prompto awake, albeit whining about it, and found a side gate; he really didn’t want to go back through the house. It was probably incredibly rude to just leave without telling Macha, or her friend whose house it was whom he’d met earlier and whose name he’d instantly forgotten, but who cared? It wasn’t like he was going to come to a party again. He didn’t understand why anyone ever did.

He pushed Prompto into the backseat, where he lay down without even saying hi to Ignis, and tumbled into the passenger side.

Ignis was watching him, and when Noct turned and squinted at him and said, “What?” he took a deep breath, his face smoothing out, and said, “Nothing. I’m glad you’re all right.” He was back wearing his glasses, probably because he’d been in bed, and he looked normal and good, like Noct’s Ignis again.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” Noct said, gracelessly, because now Ignis was there he didn’t really have a good explanation for why he’d woken Ignis up after his busy week at school and made him come get them, instead of just gotten a car. “Thanks for picking me up.”

Ignis looked out the windshield and put the car in drive. “I’d rather you called me.”

Prompto was snoring again and Ignis tilted the rearview mirror to check on him. “Do you have his mother’s number? I think he ought to stay with you tonight rather than take him home like this.”

“I can text her off his phone later,” Noct said, fidgeting. 

Ignis glanced at Noct and then reached behind the passenger seat and came up with a sweatshirt. He said tentatively, “You don't really party.” 

“Well you're off doing new things,” Noct said, struggling into the sweatshirt in his seat and hunching into its warmth. He felt torn between being belligerent and grown-up, standing his ground, and wanting to crawl into the backseat and go to sleep on Prompto while Ignis just took care of everything. “Why shouldn't I?”

“Whose party was it?” Ignis said.

“Some girl, I don’t know,” Noct said. His hands were cold and he pulled them into the sleeves of the sweatshirt. It smelled a little of Ignis’s cologne and a little of the freshly-cleaned scent of Ignis’s car. “Macha brought us.”

“Councillor Enrisha’s granddaughter? I didn’t know you’d actually started seeing her,” Ignis said. He sounded put-out, almost upset. Noct looked out of the window and shrugged; it wasn’t like he’d deliberately not told Ignis, but Ignis didn’t like not knowing what was going on.

“I probably won’t now I ran out of her friend’s party,” he said.

“Hmm,” Ignis said, and that seemed to be it. Noct leaned his head against the nice smooth glass of the window and closed his eyes.

***

He didn’t really have a hangover when he woke up, or he didn’t think he did, just a little headache. He lay in bed for a while anyway, replaying the evening in his mind and trying to figure out whether he’d been too weird, and why he couldn’t have just gone and enjoyed partying and talked to girls and got drunk like Prompto. Eventually the fetid smell of his room and the claustrophobia of his thoughts both started to get to him and he got up and opened a window, then shuffled silently out.

Ignis was sitting on the couch and working on a laptop, steaming coffee next to him, a comforting smell of baking in the air. A neatly folded set of sheets were placed on the table, like he’d slept over. Ignis looked up when he heard Noct come in, and smiled.

“Morning,” Noct mumbled. “Where’s Prom?”

“He woke very early, feeling quite unwell,” Ignis said. “I thought it best he sleep the remainder off in his own bed so I drove him home. He showed me some of his photos. He’s quite talented, actually.” He put the laptop aside and came over to Noct. He was still wearing his glasses and as he came in close to check Noct over, Noct had to tilt his chin up to keep looking into his eyes. “You don’t look too bad. Do you want breakfast?”

“Yes please,” Noct said. “Did you - what’d you bake?” 

“Brownies,” Ignis said. “For later. What do you want?”

“Pancakes, please,” Noct said, and he sat at the table and propped his head in his hands and watched Ignis make him pancakes, moving around the kitchen smoothly and quietly. Noct’s headache seemed to fade while he watched, as if the pain was draining from his head down his arms and into the wooden table.

“Thanks again,” he said, when Ignis slid a plate in front of him piled with pancakes, with thick honey and fresh-whipped cream on them and strawberries on the side, like Noct liked. “For, you know. Sorry I dragged you out.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Ignis said quietly. He sat opposite Noct at the table and took a strawberry.

He went back to his laptop when Noct was about halfway through. When Noct was done eating he went over to the couch and Ignis shifted over to make room for him, seemingly unaware he was doing it. Noct sat down, and then lay down, pulling the blanket that was still over the back of the couch over himself, propping his head on Ignis’s hip and shutting his eyes.

Magic was crackling through Noct again, as if rest and pancakes had totally replenished it. In the blurred moments before he napped he thought he felt soft fingers in his hair and he reached back for Ignis, not with his hands which were cosy under the blanket but with his magic, instinctively, wrapped a warm welcoming thread of it around Ignis’s wrist and slipped back into sleep.

***

Thursday was magic lesson day again. Cor texted him earlier on to say Dad had time to eat with him that night first, for once, so Noct went over a little earlier than usual.

“So I hear you and Macha have been getting on very well,” Dad said, clearly trying to be casual, over the main course. 

Noct paused in picking the mushrooms carefully out of his sauce. “I guess,” he said cautiously. He hadn’t heard from her since the party. Prompto had texted Rizann to say sorry for them peacing out, and she’d texted back it was cool, but she hadn’t responded to Prompto’s follow-up text and Noct had forbidden him from keeping trying.

“Do you like her?” Dad said.

“She’s a nice person?” Noct said.

“Well, if you don’t like her, perhaps there’s another girl you might like more?” Dad said. “And eat your vegetables, please, Noct. Don’t just push them all to the side.”

“Look what I learned,” Noct said, desperately, under attack on dual fronts. He’d figured out Prompto’s idea on Sunday, with Ignis’s help, and now he closed his eyes and reached out into the space where the dagger lived, and came up with a coin, flourishing it like a street magician. “Cool, right? I put it in there earlier and I can get it back out again.”

“You put a coin in the arsenal,” Dad said slowly. “That’s… why?”

Noct frowned and ate another bite of chicken. He closed his hand around the coin, pushing it with a stray extension of thought back into the space. He’d been pretty pleased with that and Dad was pouring cold water all over it.

“Never mind,” he said.

***

He found it hard to sleep that night, magic still fluorescing through his body; it was just like that now, and more after the lessons. He kicked at the sheets and punched at the pillows and tried lying on his side, on his tummy, and finally on his back, the sheets constraining and twisted around him. He scrabbled them away in a bad temper, tensed all the muscles in his body at once, so hard he thought he might snap, and relaxed them all in a rush, trying to imagine himself heavy and still and restful.

It didn’t really work. He snuffled into his pillow in irritation and wriggled, messing up the sheets. He was kind of warm: he sat up and took off his pajama top, and then on a whim his pajama pants too, feeling a little thrill of disobedience as he lay back down naked, the cover draped demurely over him, a little rough against his skin.

It felt good. He slid his hands up his chest and pinched at his nipples, experimentally, sighed and thrust his hips up at the little jolt of pleasure, his plumping cock rubbing against the fabric, thickening fast. His skin was warm and sensitive under his fingertips, even more so when magic seemed to follow his hands and pool there, sparks arcing between his fingers and his body.

He cried out when he touched his cock, and then bit down on his lip, even though nobody could hear him; old habits from when he’d been in the palace, and Ignis had slept in the room next door. He’d used to have to remind himself of that a lot to keep quiet, thought about Ignis next door, maybe hearing, maybe listening as Noct jerked off, as he wrapped his fingers around his cock and fucked his hand, like he was now, maybe mad, or embarrassed, or maybe - maybe Ignis doing the same thing, whining out how good it felt to touch, to let go, to come -

He was much more sleepy after. He grabbed a tissue and wiped himself up, sort of, then rolled onto his stomach and snuggled down.

***

Gladio picked him up on Friday to go over for training. Noct slipped into the driver’s seat and adjusted it from all the settings that accommodated Gladio’s enormousness.

“Hear you went to a party last week,” Gladio said.

“You too?” Noct said in disgust. “Who told _you_?”

“Prom and Iggy both did,” Gladio said. “Prom said he had a great time.”

“Prompto got so drunk he threw up in someone’s rose bushes,” Noct muttered. “He did not have a great time.”

“Well, he said he did,” Gladio said, unruffled. “Nothing wrong with looking on the bright side now and again, Noct.”

“What did Ignis say?”

“Said he had to pick you two up. He didn’t mention the rose bushes, though. Try and change gears more smoothly. Clutch, change, let it out.”

“I’m never going to a party again,” Noct said, trying to change gears more smoothly, but it was hard; the car rattled and made alarmed noises whenever he did anything. “So he won’t have to any more.”

“I don’t think he minded. He’s coming this evening.”

“He is? Why?” Noct said. He glanced at Gladio, who was looking totally unconcerned.

“We were talking about the magic again, I dunno. He said he thinks it’s time we get more used to fighting together. You know how my dad and your dad have their stuff they can do together? Like that. It’s not a bad idea.”

“Oh,” Noct said.

Ignis was already there and waiting for them when they pulled up to Gladio’s place, sitting on the hood of his car and reading a thick book. The cover was written in a script Noct didn't know. Accordan, maybe. “Hi,” Ignis said. 

“Hi,” Noct said. “Don't you have anything better to do on a Friday night?”

“No,” Ignis said, and smiled. He was wearing a leather jacket; black leather, familiar black again, a good one cut almost like a suit jacket to fall over his chest and hips, open over the white shirt. It looked good, soft and touchable. He was wearing his glasses again, a new pair, narrower, so maybe the contacts experiment was over; Noct tried not to care either way.

“Hey, Iggy,” Gladio said, and the pair of them did some ridiculous handshake with bumping shoulders Noct didn't even recognise. 

“Wow,” he said, loud enough they both knew how impressed he wasn't, and went inside to change into practice gear. 

He trained with Gladio most weeks, and he saw Ignis train sometimes, but it had been a long time since he'd really seen Ignis fight. He'd always excelled with knives but he was stupid good now, laughing with Gladio and doing tricks like throwing them up in the air and kicking them for Gladio to hit away with his greatsword held like it was a baseball bat, always totally accurate and in control. They looked comfortable, like maybe they did this pretty regularly. 

“Have you been working on this?” Noct said suspiciously. 

“Chill, princess,” Gladio said. “We’re at the palace gym at the same time sometimes, it makes sense to check out what we’re doing.”

Noct tried to hide how that made him feel, not so much jealous as left out. It wasn't that he didn't want them to have that, just that he wanted it too; he wanted to be there with them, to have handshakes and jokes. 

Ignis came to him and their hands brushed as Ignis handed him a practice sword. “Here,” Ignis said gently. “Practice bout, okay?”

It was hard-fought. Noct went on the attack immediately, thinking maybe he could take Ignis by surprise, because he certainly couldn't take him by force. Ignis let himself be duelled back, losing one step and then two, and Noct fell into his best swordwork, eager to show off. 

Ignis met it and more and Noctis felt a fierce joy rise up in him, the simplicity of battle calling to a deep part of him. He could almost feel the blood thundering through his body, hear it in the glad beat of his heart in his ears, knew that now electric magic was chasing it there, spreading through him. 

A feint and a twist and Ignis was on him, hilt to hilt and struggling, and Noct dropped the sword and just flung himself on Ignis, bringing him down more by surprise than by weight. 

Ignis’s body was solid and alive bucking under his, the bare skin of Ignis’s arms under Noct’s hands and his chest heaving beneath Noct’s. His face was buried in Ignis’s throat; he could have ripped at it with his teeth and he gasped instead, wrestling Ignis down in helpless straining effort, barely noticing when Ignis practically head butted him then just grabbed Noct’s hips hard down to his and flipped them, getting his hands around Noct’s wrists and pinning him, his face over Noct’s glowing with effort and victory. Noct’s magic joined the fight gladly, but not struggling against Ignis’s hold; it ran up Noct’s arms and over onto Ignis in happy blue streams, and Ignis groaned above him and abruptly went heavy, like with sleep or bliss, pressing Noct into the floor, and Noct went limp under him, squashed, his legs spreading to cradle Ignis’s hips and take some of the pressure off. 

“Okay,” Gladio called, somewhere above them, his voice a bit strangled, “tap out, boys,” and Ignis rolled off him and up. 

Noct lay back, breath coming hard and ragged. His nose ached; he touched it gingerly, felt his fingers dampen with blood. 

Ignis crouched over him and offered him a healing spell and Noct crunched it and winced as the prickling energy washed over him, feeling his nose straighten and the pain fade. “They should invent something easier,” he said, blinking up at Ignis as the spell dissipated. “Hey, remember when you used to go easy on me?”

Ignis grinned. He wasn't unscathed, Noct had got a little of his own back; Ignis was breathless and scruffed up, hair falling over his forehead, sweat gleaming on his shoulders and the bare hollow of his throat and cheeks, one of which was tender and reddened. He reached out, running his fingertips over Noct’s nose, his cheek. “I remember when you needed it, Highness,” he said, teasing, and Noct found his eyes closing as Ignis cradled his face, careful and sweet.

***

Ignis drove Noct home and stayed over. When Noct came out of his room in the morning Ignis was reading the newspaper and eating his way through bowls of the really healthy cereal Noct disliked, which hadn’t been in the apartment earlier, so Ignis must have got up, gone out grocery shopping, and come back. It felt nice and comfortable and Noct mumbled his good mornings and went to pick up his game.

Ignis cooked burgers for lunch, and didn’t even put lettuce on Noct’s. After, he said, with a deceptive air of harmless enquiry, “Homework…?” and Noct said, “Some,” and went to get his bookbag.

“What are you working on?” Ignis said, peering over his laptop.

“History,” Noct said. He came over and sat next to Ignis at the table and Ignis obligingly shuffled some of his stuff over to make room. “Recent history. The fall of Solheim.”

“I’m surprised they’re teaching that,” Ignis said, frowning.

“I don’t think it’s very accurate,” Noct said. He opened his textbook and showed Ignis the introduction and Ignis pulled it over and started to read.

“No,” he said after a minute. “What a waste of your time, Noctis. How long are you supposed to spend on this? I’ll speak to your teacher.”

“Not long,” Noct said hastily. “It’s okay, I want to learn what everyone else is learning. I should know what people think, right? And hey, look -”

He leaned in close and took possession of the book back. His fingers brushed against Ignis’s as he flipped forward a few pages and pointed at a section he’d noticed reading ahead in class the other day. “Look, Ambassador Feren is in it, from before he was an Ambassador. You remember when we were kids and he came to the citadel?”

“Very well,” Ignis said wryly. “I remember he was rude to the King and you put a fart cushion on his chair for the high banquet.”

“He was so rude!” Noct said, grinning. “He deserved it, right? It was funny, you remember? He was so offended.”

“It wasn’t funny,” Ignis said, but he’d laughed at the time and he was laughing now, his face open and sweet and boyish, and Noct leaned in, driven by sudden desire that drowned out everything else, and met Ignis’s lips with his, a little off-target, felt Ignis’s shoulder under his hand like he was in a dream.

Ignis’s mouth moved under his. Kissing back - 

\- No - 

Saying, “ _Noct_ -”

“I have to go,” Noctis said, flattened by fear, and ran.

He’d forgotten they were in his own apartment. He crept into a cafe on the other side of the street and bought five sodas, one after the other, until he saw Ignis leave, and then he went home and pulled the covers over his head until Monday.


	4. Chapter 4

He spent the next week hoping and praying to every Astral he could think of that Ignis wouldn't talk about it, ever. 

“You’re in a weird mood,” Gladio said, over cards; Prompto still hadn’t got the hang of the tactics of striker, but he kept insisting he could improve.

“He’s been in a weird mood all week,” Prompto said.

Noct snarled faintly and held his cards closer to his chest.

“Hmm,” Gladio said. He was watching Noct knowingly and it made Noct want to climb under the table and wait for everyone to leave.

“Don’t hmm at me,” he snapped. Gladio raised an eyebrow at him and stretched obnoxiously.

“What’s that?” Prompto said. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“What’s what?” Noct said, and then he saw it, the dressing wrapped around Gladio’s arm, exposed when the long sleeve of his hoodie had ridden up.

“It’s nothing,” Gladio said, and pulled the sleeve back down over it. “Back off, okay?”

“It’s something,” Prompto said, dismayed.

“Did you get hurt?” Noct said. “Training accident? Did something happen?”

Gladio looked furious, but he seemed to relent at Prompto’s genuine concern. “I got a tattoo, okay?”

“A tattoo?” Noct said, over Prompto’s, “That’s so cool!” He looked at Gladio and said, “Your dad is going to be so mad.”

“I _know_ , so you can’t tell him, okay? I’ll show him when they’re done.”

“They?” Prompto said, dismay turned to delight. “Are you getting more?”

“I’m gonna get full sleeves,” Gladio said self-consciously.

“Why?” Noct said, fascinated. He’d never bothered to even think about tattoos, or piercings, or any of that stuff that kids at school had started to talk about; not right for the dignity of the throne. That was what Dad would say, and it was definitely what Clarus was going to say, that Gladio’s body was the crown’s, and not for idle defacing.

“I don’t know,” Gladio said, but he ran he fingers lightly over his forearm, maybe picturing whatever it was he’d had put there, with a soft smile. “I just wanted something that was… I don’t know. I thought it’d look good.”

“I’m sure it’s gonna look great,” Noct said.

***

Ignis came around on Saturday. 

He talked about his week at school, then he talked about Noct’s week at school, then he talked about the origin of the beef of the chilli he was planning to cook for them, in bulk so there'd be plenty left for Noct to heat up later, and then he talked about vegetables for about ten minutes, and _then_ , in utter distress and unable to bear it for a moment longer, Noct cried out, “Aren't we even gonna talk about it?”

“I didn't think you'd want to!” Ignis said, loud, instantly. He'd gone a colour Noct had never seen him before, blotchy pink and pale underneath. 

“I don't!” Noct yelled. 

“You brought it up!” Ignis yelled back. 

“Yeah,” Noct said, in his normal voice. He gazed at Ignis, helplessly, and Ignis threw himself off the sofa and went to stare out of the glass to the balcony. 

Noct’s stomach felt tight, his body wracked with uncertainty, like stepping up to the bottom of the grand stair in the cathedra, judgement seated at the heights. “Ignis,” he said. Ignis’s shoulders hunched almost imperceptibly, and Noct said it again, pleading, “Ignis. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I won't… I won't do it again.” 

Ignis bowed his head at that. Noct could feel his magic within him, almost alive, waiting, wanting Ignis closer so badly he could feel it crackling the air between them, and something made him add, “Not if you don't want.”

Ignis turned back to him then and he was still pale, his face strained. He tried to smile at Noct, but it was just his mouth moving; his eyes were bright, almost wet, not crinkled and glittering like when he smiled for real. 

“It’s not about what I want,” Ignis said, visibly trying to be calm. “I know your dad has been on your back about... things. And… and you don’t know very many people -”

“That's got nothing to do with anything!” Noct said, swinging wildly to annoyance. “Gods, if it was that I’d kiss Prompto. I don’t want to kiss Prompto."

“You would _not_ kiss Prompto,” Ignis snapped, going red and stormy, and Noct looked at him with slow, dawning amazement.

“Are you jealous?” he said. “That’s - you don’t want me to kiss Prompto."

“No,” Ignis said, and now he looked sad. Noct was abruptly reminded of one day when they'd been kids, stupid kids, pricking their fingers and sharing blood and Ignis had sworn loyalty forever to Noct, proudly. “No, Noct, I don’t and that’s not fair to you. I’m supposed to take care of you, not… I’m not supposed to feel like that.”

“But you do,” Noct said, disbelief and excitement rising in him. He took a step closer to Ignis, and Ignis took a step closer to him, hesitant but as if he was magnetised, as if he couldn’t stop himself. “You do feel like that?”

“Noct…” Ignis said, and the way he was looking at Noct, soft and hopeful and with a trembling smile, made Noct brave.

He stepped in close as he could, his body up against Ignis’s, and drew in a sharp little breath when Ignis settled his hands gently on Noct’s hips. But Ignis didn’t make that final move: Noct was the one to stand up on his tiptoes and bring their mouths together.

It was good, so good, Ignis’s lips delicate and moving tentatively on his. Noct's knees shivered a little and Ignis slid his arms all the way around Noct’s waist, holding him tight and secure. 

It was _so good_ , but Noct had no idea what he was doing. It looked super easy and natural when people did it on TV and in the movies but when he tried to flap his mouth the way he'd seen it just felt weird, not fun, and he wriggled against Ignis and tried to press apologetically closer. 

Ignis let him go, but only to cup Noct’s face and slow the kiss, showing Noct what to do, and Noct clung to him and tried to copy, finding what felt good, what made his body come gorgeously alive in Ignis’s arms. He sucked gently on Ignis’s full lower lip, inquisitive and emboldened, and Ignis sighed and pulled away just enough to brush their noses together, kiss the corner of his mouth and murmur, “Noct."

***

And that was it for the weekend, then, pretty much: they made out non-stop, parting only when Ignis insisted he had to sleep in the guest room, and even then Noct lay awake for ages vibrating with the knowledge Ignis was so close, and in the morning Noct could touch again, could have what he wanted, just had to go within a metre of Ignis and Ignis would smile and reach for him, pull him into hugs that turned into Noct tilting his face up for long, deep, perfect kisses. 

Even Ignis cooking, when he'd usually shoo Noct away unless he was being deliberately helpful, turned into wild kissing up against the kitchen cabinets, and Sunday lunch was totally burned and they had to eat pot noodles; Noct didn't care. 

He even congratulated himself that by Sunday night, when Ignis left to go back to the dorms - with one last kiss, then another, and a final one, then a totally final one, for serious this time, he was going, and then just one more for the road - Noct had this kissing thing down. He was so good at it by then Ignis was making little noises into Noct’s mouth when they kissed that made Noct _want_ , that made them both press their hard cocks together through their pants urgently even though no hands had even wandered below-waistwards; it was so good Noct was alive and ecstatic with it, so good he thought magic might explode out of him and light up the whole city with happiness. 

***

“You’re in a better mood,” Prompto said, cheerfully.

Noct, interrupted from a pleasant reverie about the softness of Ignis’s lips and the shy touch of his tongue, said, “Am I?”

***

“You’re in a better mood,” Gladio said, suspiciously.

Noct, interrupted from a pleasant reverie about Ignis’s long legs and muscled thighs in his blue jeans, said, “Am I?”

***

“You’re in a better mood,” Dad said, gratefully.

Noct, interrupted from a pleasant reverie about the breadth of Ignis’s shoulders under his hands as they’d kissed, said, “Am I?”

***

Ignis came to training with Gladio again on Friday and it was complete torture. Ignis looked so good in his thin training clothes, and he moved so beautifully wielding the long poleaxe, and he smelled so delicious when Noct couldn't pay attention and he took Noct to the floor for the third time in a row. Being underneath Ignis felt right, felt lovely, and Noct had to forcibly stop himself from just letting his legs wrap around Ignis’s trim waist the way they wanted to and pulling Ignis’s mouth down to his. It had been nearly a week since they'd touched, and he was jerking off so much his dick was practically raw in his boxers. 

He’d been a little worried that maybe Ignis would have forgotten about the kissing, or changed his mind, or… or been making out his stupid university hat-lending friend and realised Noct was useless and had never done anything with another person apart from Ignis and Ignis didn’t need to put up with that, but Ignis went pink when they said hello, and smiled, and his gaze dipped to Noct’s mouth and stuck there. The way he looked at Noct made Noct feel wanted, made him feel _seen_ , and it kept him floating on a high through the whole training session, even when Gladio hit him really hard on the ass with the flat of his broadsword and it stung for a good twenty minutes afterwards.

He was too happy to really notice Gladio watching them both in a cynical, narrow-eyed way, until it was nearly time to leave and Gladio said, “Hey, Noct, what are you doing next weekend?”

“Um,” Noct said, trying to think of something to say other than the only thing filling his head, which was _kiss Ignis a lot and maybe get him to take off his shirt for it_. “Nothing. I guess.”

“I’m going camping,” Gladio announced, which was really nice for him although Noct couldn’t figure out why he thought they needed to know about it, but then Gladio went on, “why don’t you come with me?”

“Camping?” Noct said, literally unable to imagine anything worse.

“Camping,” Gladio said grimly. “I’ll pick you up from school on Friday.”

He stalked off, leaving Noct protesting, “But I don’t want to go camping,” to thin air.

“I don’t want to go camping,” he said to Ignis, instead. 

Ignis was looking after Gladio, but he transferred his attention to Noct the second Noct spoke to him. “Go camping with him,” he said, and smiled a half-smile. “You might like it. You could take your fishing stuff, you used to enjoy fishing with your father.”

“I guess,” Noct said, grumpily, second-guessing himself again. Weekends were _their_ time, him and Ignis; did Ignis really want to lose one of them, give up seeing Noct? Especially now. Maybe he was already thanking the gods to have Noct out of his hair for at least one weekend.

“Hey,” Ignis said, and brushed their hands together. Noct turned his a little, just to see, and Ignis grabbed his hand, their palms slipping together, both of them sweaty and kind of gross. “Go camping with Gladio,” Ignis said, low, and his gaze was fixed on Noct’s mouth again. “We’ll still… we’ll still have our time, okay? As much as you want. If you want.”

“Can we go home now?” Noct said. It came out on a whine but it was lucky it came out at all because he was breathless, suddenly so desperate for Ignis’s mouth on his he felt faint for it.

Ignis caught his breath, too. “Go get in the car,” he said, and Noct practically ran for it.

***

He turned against Ignis and pushed him back against the front door as soon as they were inside the apartment and Ignis was just as eager, meeting Noct and more than giving back in a fierce, joyous kiss. Noct couldn’t help being noisy, he’d been thinking about this all week long, and he groaned into Ignis’s mouth, clutching at his hair to keep him close, as close as possible.

“Iggy,” he said, hardly recognising his own voice, and pushed Ignis’s head down a little, hopefully. Ignis had kissed his throat last week and the feel of his breath and lips and teeth there had been so good Noct had thought he might rocket out of his skin. 

He’d always kind of assumed, when all the kids in school were whispering and boasting and making out in the corridors, that it couldn’t be _that_ good with someone else - Noct had his hands and his dick, he could make himself feel amazing, what else could there be? But he definitely couldn’t suck gently at his own neck, he couldn’t slouch down against the door like Ignis was now with his leg sliding tentatively between Noct’s thighs so Noct could rock gratefully against it.

“Let’s… inside, okay?” Ignis said, and when he raised his head he looked fantastic, mussed up and flushed, eyes dark and dizzy, and Noct had to lean up and take another long kiss before he could even think about moving.

They pulled one another through to the lounge, stopping every step or two to kiss hungrily, like they were trying to fit a whole last week’s worth of kissing into right now. Noct felt like he was full of bubbles, everything narrowing down to just Ignis’s hands on him, his in Ignis’s hair and scratching gently at the nape of his neck and exploring the taut muscle of his back.

Ignis more or less fell onto the sofa and yanked Noct down after him, on top of him. They hadn’t done this last weekend and it took Noct a minute to figure out where to put himself, how to straddle Ignis’s lap with his knees snugged up against Ignis’s hips and his weight on Ignis’s thighs. Ignis let him get comfortable, hands roaming restlessly over Noct’s chest and hips. He was gazing up at Noct the way he looked at the bright night sky and Noct closed his eyes, dipped down to find Ignis’s mouth again with his, and lost himself to how good it felt.

***

By the time the weekend was done, Noct was a man who had had an orgasm when someone else was in the room.

It was okay, though; he didn’t think Ignis had noticed him coming in his pants, and he’d sneaked out early and done his own laundry Sunday morning before Ignis woke up. It was only natural, anyway. Normal. He’d looked it up on the internet.

He and Ignis had never really got into the habit of texting a lot. For ten years they’d practically lived in one another’s back pockets, they’d never needed to, or at least Noct had known he’d see Ignis at the end of the day and talk to him about whatever he wanted; the most he’d ever really texted Ignis was to ask him to pick something up at the store or check something his teachers had told him that he was pretty sure was wrong.

Now, he was on the phone to Ignis almost all the time. It was like his fingers ached for Ignis, and if Noct couldn’t have him actually there to touch then using them to text him was the next best thing. Ignis usually answered right away, even when he was in class; Noct had the class schedule Ignis had given him, back at the beginning of the semester, and he tried not to message Ignis when he was busy, but sometimes he just needed to know Ignis was there so badly. It wasn’t sexting or anything, wasn’t anything Noct couldn’t have shown his dad, if it came to it, but it was good.

***

Noct opened his eyes, but he already knew he’d done it: he looked down and the rapier was there in his hand.

“Very good, Noctis!” Dad said. He rested a hand on Noct’s shoulder and Noct grinned up at him proudly.

Dad must’ve been really pleased with him, because he made time to spend with Noct, after, in his private rooms. He splashed brandy into a glass for himself, and laughed in a nice way when Noct asked, optimistically, for beer. He had Noct’s favourite soda in the fridge and Noct got a can of that instead.

“You’ve really come along in the last few weeks,” Dad said quietly, when they were both settled in the comfortable sitting room off the King’s bedchamber. He had the leg brace off, so he must’ve been done for the day. Noct tried to keep his eyes off the visible muscle wastage the brace usually distracted from; without it his dad’s trouser leg flapped around, outlining the thinness of his leg disturbingly.

“Thanks,” Noct said, deciding to assume it was a compliment. He held his can up to his dad hesitantly and Dad smiled, if wearily, and clinked his glass against it.

“I know you’re working hard,” Dad said. “Noct… if I push you, it’s just because I… I see what’s ahead of you. Of us. I want to do everything I can to prepare you, to give you the best possible chance.”

“Yeah, I know,” Noct said quickly, and drained half his drink. He didn’t want to have this conversation, not at all, and he didn’t want to come along if it meant his dad was going to talk like this to him, like oh great Noct was ready and his dad could just… give up. Fade away.

Dad eyed him and then sighed and took a big gulp of his own drink. “I’m not trying to upset you, 

“I know,” Noct said again. “It’s fine, whatever.”

“The crystal is responding to you very nicely now,” Dad said. He stared at his own hand for a minute and then he held his hand up to Noct, palm out and fingers spread. Noct looked at it, looked at him, and held his own hand up in a mirror image, nearly but not quite touching. His hand was smaller than his dad’s, smooth and young, and then his attention was dragged from that as the Ring of the Lucii began to glow steadily on his dad’s finger, pure white light that leapt to Noct like fire between buildings and twined around his fingers. It was warm, hot even, and Noct hissed as it coiled painfully tight around his own ring finger, just for a second, and watched as it faded.

He looked at Dad again. He didn’t know what the hell that had all been about, but Dad was looking satisfied.

“I didn’t get this advanced until my glaive was much more developed,” Dad said thoughtfully. “You’re still seeing Gladio and Ignis regularly, yes?”

A vivid picture intruded on Noct’s thoughts of the last time he’d seen Ignis, grinning with kiss-tender pink lips and leaning in for more, neither of them even caring Noct was half sitting on a textbook, Noct’s legs wide and his fingers in Ignis’s beltloops and pulling him in tight.

“Yeah,” he said, and tried to use drinking the rest of his soda to hide behind the can and let it cool his suddenly fiery cheeks.

“And this boy you’re friends with at school,” Dad said.

“Prompto?” Noct said.

“Yes, Prompto,” Dad said. “I want to meet him.”

“Yeah, great,” Noct said, so relieved that Dad hadn’t said anything about Noct making out with his adviser that he was barely aware what he was promising. “I’m sure he’d love to.”

***

“Bring him to solstice,” Gladio suggested, halfway to wherever the fuck it was they were camping. “Meet and greet, five minutes, the King can see Prom don’t have two heads or whatever he’s worried about, and we’ll all have a great time eating waffles round the bonfire.”

“That’s a good idea,” Noct said, pleased. “I can ask him to that.”

“I have a lot of good ideas,” Gladio said. “And don’t even think about it. Driver picks the music.”

“I offered to drive,” Noct pointed out sulkily, plugging Gladio’s phone back into the stereo jack. “You wouldn’t let me.”

“You’re still not up to this car,” Gladio said, patting the steering wheel so fondly it was a bit weird, frankly. He had another bandage on his other wrist.

“Did you tell Clarus about the tattoos yet?” Noct said.

Gladio looked over at him and said, “I'll tell him when the time’s right for him to know,” meaningfully. 

Noct didn't know what he meant. He looked out of the window, at the dusty outskirts of the city, near the forgotten edge of the Wall, and muttered, “Right.”

***

“Do you know why I asked you camping this weekend?” Gladio said, the next afternoon. 

Because misery loved company? Noct had slept really badly, with a rock digging into his kidneys and Gladio on a hairtrigger for possible threats to his prince that Noct was pretty sure even he hadn't expected, so he'd woken up about every hour and that had made Noct wake up too. Then instead of the fantastic cooked breakfast Noct would have gotten if he'd had his normal weekend with Ignis, Gladio had handed him an energy bar and made him go hiking for three hours, to places where Noct couldn't even get a phone signal. He missed Ignis like he missed four walls and a roof and it was all adding up to making him very cranky. 

“No,” he said, politely. 

“Okay,” Gladio said. “You want to go fishing?”

“Yes, please,” Noct said, seizing gratefully on anything that meant he could sit down and nurse the blister he already had, rather than making more. Although, “I forgot to bring the fishing stuff.”

“You forgot to bring anything,” Gladio pointed out. “It's fine. Iggy brought fishing gear when he dropped your weekend bag at my place.”

“Great,” Noct said. That was right: Ignis had come over on Wednesday evening to pack Noct an overnight bag, and after he'd had Noct do his homework and before he'd sent Noct to bed so he'd be rested for school they'd grabbed a precious half an hour together, back on the couch. 

He found there was a soft smile stuck to his face. Gladio raised his eyebrow at him and Noct shrugged. 

Fishing was more fun than Noct remembered. The last time he'd done it he'd been very little, before he even got hurt and went to Tenebrae. He hadn't really fished himself, just played around his dad’s chair and Dad had helped him reel in whenever the line pulled and let him boast to everyone about the fish he'd caught. 

He had more on his mind now and there was something soothing about kicking back and watching the line wait quietly in the water of the lake, and then something satisfying about the brief moments of action when he caught something. Maybe next time they could bring Ignis; Noct was only catching tiddlers here so they were throwing them back anyway, but Ignis liked to cook seafood and rarely got it as fresh as to his liking in Insomnia. 

“Here,” Gladio said, sitting down beside him and offering him a can. 

“Really?” Noct said, when he realised what it was. “I'm allowed a beer?”

“Just that one,” Gladio said severely. “And if you act drunk I'm throwing you in the lake to cool off, so take it slow.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Noct said. 

“Yeah,” Gladio said. Then he said, “Are you and Ignis fucking?” and Noct choked on the first mouthful of beer. 

“What?” he said, trying to act shocked and confused, then wondering if he should've gone for mad and trying to look forbidding, but it was useless; he could already feel the blush rising over his throat and up to his cheeks. 

“I'm gonna take that as a yes,” Gladio said, and at Noct’s spluttered, embarrassed wordless denial, “oh, okay, right, maybe you're not fucking yet. But you're messing around, yeah? I thought it was pretty new.”

“I'm not _messing_ ,” was all Noct could think of to say. Had Ignis told Gladio that was what it was? Fooling around, not serious, just something they were playing at? “Did he say that to you?”

“No,” Gladio said. He was watching Noct and his eyes were kind. Noct drew up his knees and hugged them and didn't even move when there was a tug on the line, and Gladio sighed and got up to deal with it. “I haven't spoken to Iggy yet,” he said, over his shoulder. 

“Don't,” Noct pleaded. 

“Oh, I'm gonna,” Gladio said. “I got to talk to him about this, Noct, come on. Both of you guys are my problem.”

“Is it really obvious?” Noct said. He almost wanted it to be: he wanted people to see them, to know they were together, that Noct got to touch Ignis and kiss him, but at the same time he wanted it to be private, just theirs. He didn't want to explain it to his dad, or gods forbid have it getting out into the press, that the crown prince was in love with one of his companions 

“Only in the training room,” Gladio said wryly. “Which I’d appreciate it if you could get a lid on, by the way. Most people don't spend time with the both of you together.”

“Don't say anything to make him think it's a bad idea,” Noct said quietly. “Please, Gladio."

Gladio turned to look at him, cursed at another tug on the line and went back to it while Noct stared at his kneecaps and tried not to panic. His foot was throbbing where he'd got the blister and he wanted to go home, eat Ignis’s cooking and have Ignis’s arms around him again. 

“Noct…” Gladio said, and Noct felt too bad not to lean into it when he put his arm around Noct’s shoulders. “I'm not going to put him off. Like I could, anyway. I just want both of you to be careful, okay? I wanna know you're treating each other right.”

“Okay,” Noct whispered. 

“And,” Gladio said. He delved back into the cooler and Noct watched in horror as he brought out a banana and a strip of condoms. “I want you to be _safe_. Get practicing, lover boy.”

***

Gladio brought Noct home on Sunday morning. Noct woke up as they pulled into the underground parking garage and Gladio parked. 

“I think I'll come up,” Gladio said. 

Noct followed his gaze to Ignis’s car in the space reserved for Noct’s apartment. “Okay,” he said, accepting the inevitable. 

Ignis didn't look that happy to see Gladio, especially when he exclaimed over how good lunch smelled and invited himself to stay to eat. He wandered off into the living room and Noct lingered in the hall. Ignis helped him off with his coat and Noct sighed as he brushed the sensitive nape of Noct’s neck with his fingertips, then followed it, daring, with his mouth, so Noct had to bite back a moan. All he wanted was to be alone with Ignis, but they could hardly throw Gladio out. 

“Did you have a good time?” Ignis said. The smile on his face was new: it was small and curving and intimate and Noct wanted to see it on Ignis’s face basically for the rest of time. 

“It was okay,” Noct said. He still hadn't slept well, and the trauma hadn't faded of having to put fourteen condoms on the banana one after the other while Gladio told him horrible stories about the apparently numerous sexual diseases rampant amongst his friends in the crownsguard. Like Ignis would have diseases; he was meticulous about his health, and if there was any chance he did have any, there was no way he'd ever put Noct at risk of getting them too: Noct knew that like he knew his own name.

Ignis was wearing his apron. He wiped his hand on it and then cradled Noct’s chin, running the pad of his thumb over Noct’s bottom lip gently. He liked doing that, Noct had noticed, and he liked it too, the warmth of Ignis’s big clever hand on his face. It made his eyes want to close like they were doing now, made him want to sway close to Ignis and be held. 

“Hi,” Ignis said, low, and kissed him. It was a different kind of kiss than any others they'd shared yet, which had mainly been part of frantic makeout sessions. This one was soft and affectionate, just a quick taste, a brief acknowledgement of hey, they hadn't seen each other in a while and wasn't it nice to be together again, and Noct loved it.

“Hi,” he said. He put his arms around Ignis’s neck and buried his face in the vee of skin at the undone collar of his shirt, and Ignis relaxed into the hug like he'd missed Noct too. 

***

Gladio hung around all over lunch and afterwards like the smuggest cockblock ever. Noct gave up at about three. 

“Deal me out,” he said, disgruntled. “I've got some homework to finish by tomorrow.”

“Great, see you,” Gladio said, and stretched out his legs to prop his feet obnoxiously on the chair Noct had just got up from, making it pretty clear he wanted Noct out of the way and studying in his room. “Care to make it interesting, Iggy?”

Ignis was so damn competitive, Noct thought resentfully. He dealt the last round back into the deck and said, “Certainly.” He barely looked at Noct as Noct headed into his room, only just remembering to flash Noct a quick smile as he left, meaning Noct had to immediately paste a neutral look on his face and pretend he hadn't been glowering at Gladio from behind Ignis’s head.

Noct worked on his arts term paper for about an hour, and then Gladio knocked on the doorframe. 

“Are you leaving?” Noct said, trying his best to add a loudly unspoken _finally_ to the end. 

“Yeah,” Gladio said. He came into the room and knuckled the top of Noct’s head while Noct yelped. “Don't say thanks for taking you away or anything, kid. You're welcome.”

“Thanks,” Noct said. He really didn't want to know, but he said, “Did you talk to Ignis?"

“Yeah,” Gladio said. “Don't worry. We’re cool, yeah?”

Well, Noct hoped so. But he really wasn't sure how Ignis was going to react to this, and he hated it; ten years and he'd have said he could predict Ignis easily, but this was new unmapped territory.

He wanted to go out there and talk to Ignis, and he was afraid to. He stayed in his desk chair for a while longer, listening to the sounds of Ignis clearing up from lunch. 

He'd just about decided to go out there and face it when the noises stopped. He swung around in his chair and Ignis was leaning in the doorframe, shoulders practically filling it, and watching him. 

“Hi,” Noct said, his tongue thick with anxiety in his mouth. 

“Hi,” Ignis said. He looked serious but not upset and he stepped into the room and came to sit on the bed. 

“Did Gladio talk to you?” Noct blurted, because it was better than his unbelievably mortifying real question, which was _do you still like me_?

“Yeah,” Ignis said. 

He didn't seem to be about to say anything more. Noct stared at him for a few seconds and then he plucked up his courage and went to Ignis and Ignis widened his stance immediately to welcome Noct in between his legs. He looked… relieved, like he had anything to worry about; he searched Noct’s face for a second and then he wrapped his arms around Noct’s waist and pressed his forehead to Noct’s tummy and Noct ran his fingers through Ignis’s hair, bewildered and content. 

The novelty of being able to touch Ignis so freely, with such casual possessiveness, hadn't worn off; Noct was used to getting the things he wanted, but never usually just for him, Noct, only because he was the prince. He unwound Ignis from around him and climbed onto Ignis’s lap, leaning down for a proper kiss, warm and messy and sweet. 

They hadn't got so far as the bedroom yet, although they'd lain squashed together on the couch, Noct sprawled over Ignis or crammed against the back cushions while Ignis balanced precariously on the edge. Kissing Ignis on his bed sent a little thrill through Noct that made his cock feel sensitive and thick in his pants, hardening swiftly, and he rubbed himself on Ignis, trying to be subtle. 

Ignis gave a muffled chuckle into Noct’s mouth so Noct maybe wasn't too successful with that, but he didn't care. Ignis’s hands were soft and sure all over Noct, supporting him even when Ignis shuffled further back on the bed and brought Noct with him, and Noct took a deep explosive breath into the kiss and pushed Ignis down onto his back. 

He lay there, looking up at Noct. He was so handsome it made Noct’s eyes hurt and he reached to take Ignis’s glasses off, setting them carefully on the night table. He was still straddling Ignis’s waist, Ignis’s hands resting on his hips, and he took another deep breath and leaned forward and started to unbutton Ignis’s shirt. 

“Noct, are you sure?” Ignis said, but he didn't try to stop Noct. Noct nodded, his voice stuck in his throat, and tried to make his fingers stop shaking with nerves and arousal. 

He pushed the open sides of Ignis’s shirt away and just stared, greedy and shameless. Ignis was leanly muscled and narrow-waisted, which Noct had known, but he hadn't known the creamy shade of his skin, how smooth it would feel under Noct’s hands when he ran them over Ignis’s pecs and flat stomach, how good it would feel to listen to Ignis’s breath come hard and feel his heart hammering in his chest and know it was Noct having that effect. His magic seemed to pool in his fingertips and spread eagerly on Ignis’s skin, like it wanted to be with him too, more silvery and shining than usual, and Ignis cried out in a way that seemed more pleasured than shocked as it soaked into him, arching under Noct and tossing his head back against the covers. 

“Ignis?” Noct said, pausing, uncertain. It felt good to him, his magic and Ignis, like a thread connecting them from somewhere in Noct’s heart, but it wasn't… normal, it wasn't anything Ignis could have expected. New, just for them, and Noct shook with relief when Ignis felt for him, eyes still closed, grabbed Noct’s hand and twined their fingers where they rested on Ignis’s chest. 

“It's okay,” Ignis said, sounding lazy and dripped-honey rich. “Feels good, Noct.” With his other hand he toyed with the hem of Noct’s sweatshirt, and Noct bit his lip as Ignis opened his eyes and looked up at him, said tentatively, “You?”

Noct wasn't nearly as well-developed and beautiful as Ignis, even with how much he trained. He was just skinny and pale, but Ignis was looking at him with such devoted hope, and Noct wanted so badly for them to be that close, to kiss skin-to-skin and feel Ignis’s body against his. 

He pulled his sweatshirt and t-shirt off fast, before he could get too shy. Ignis made a sound that almost sounded hurt and Noct looked down to see that he was dazed, his eyes big and full of the look Noct was learning to interpret as desire, gratifying something incredibly deep and solitary inside him. And making his cock throb, but mainly it was the feelings. 

He'd always vaguely assumed he'd just avoid getting naked with another person forever. He hardly ever thought about the scar on his back from the daemon who'd hurt him, the damage to his spine that had stopped him walking while Dad looked for ever more complex and powerful healing magic; it was just something that had happened. But it wasn't something he liked to talk about, and he hated the attention and cloying sympathy it had got him as a kid, and he knew the scar wasn't great to look at, poison stopping it from healing cleanly so it was gnarled and still looked an angry red even eight years after the attack. 

But Ignis had seen it before. Ignis had seen everything, been there for all of it, seen it when it was new and Noct was lying in a coma, and later when it was raw and open and the healing magic was so painful it made Noct weep; it was Ignis’s bed he'd crept into to be comforted from the nightmares.

“Noctis,” Ignis said and reached for him, and Noct let himself crash down onto the bed at Ignis’s side so Ignis could do what he wanted, could run his hands along Noct’s side and hips and chest, smiling. He even touched the scar without fear, without any reaction other than the calm pleasure he seemed to take in all of Noct’s body, and it lulled Noct into a sweetly lax state; he drew even closer, started to caress Ignis back, a little shyly. 

“You’re so lovely,” Ignis murmured and Noct pressed in and kissed him, a hard driving kiss, longing. It was as perfect as he’d wanted, lying together half-naked, Ignis’s chest silky and warm against Noct’s, and he tried to memorise it, struck as he occasionally was in this whole thing that these were their firsts, the moments they might treasure… well, forever. Ignis was going to be with him forever, he was Noct’s, bound by duty and magic and probably fate going by what his dad droned on about.

He didn’t know how long they just held each other and made out, but it was long enough for Noct to get hot and almost dizzy-feeling, even though it was cool in the room, Ignis’s hands slipping in fresh light sweat as he stroked him. Noct broke away to try to drag in breaths and Ignis murmured, “Are you okay?” and waited for Noct’s restless nod and Noct’s hand in his hair guiding him hopefully down his chest.

Ignis’s mouth around his nipple was like an electric shock, almost literally with how Noct’s magic reared up inside him and started sparking up his spine as Ignis rasped delicately at it with the wet of his tongue. He let out a moan that startled even himself with how loud he’d gotten, felt Ignis’s shoulders move in satisfied acknowledgement as Noct grabbed onto him instinctively.

It was too much, too sensitive. He jolted, making a sound he was prepared to swear in court wasn’t a whimper, and Ignis went pliable against him, let himself be rolled onto his back and Noct to get astride him again, on the firm shelf of his long thighs, and Noct plucked up all his courage and grabbed Ignis’s cock through his jeans.

Ignis froze on a long, luxurious moan, his head thrown back, and Noct froze too. He could feel Ignis’s dick, the hard shape of it stuffed in his jeans, even tell the softness of the head, and it was… _wow_ , and it was real, and Noct didn't know what the hell he was doing. 

He scuttled away, off Ignis, and threw himself on the bed next to him, burying his flamingly embarrassed red face in the covers.

“Noct?” Ignis said and then, “ _Noctis_ ,” sharp with fear and guilt, the bed moving like he was starting to scramble away, and Noct flailed his hand out and grabbed the nearest part of Ignis desperately, which turned out to be his wrist, where he could feel Ignis’s thundering pulse. 

A moment ago he'd been considering that maybe Ignis would just go away quietly and they could forget this whole bedroom thing and Noct being a complete fucking fool had happened. It hadn't occurred to him that Ignis would think he'd done something wrong, other than be too amazing for Noct to be able to get over himself, and it terrified him to think Ignis might go away for real. 

“Sorry,” he said, turned his face a little so he could crack one eye open and so Ignis could hear him not muffled in the covers. “Sorry, I just… it's not you.”

“Noctis,” Ignis said, and Noct had to raise his head and look at him then because Ignis sounded genuinely broken. He was avoiding Noct’s eyes and he swallowed, like it hurt, and mumbled, “I don’t want you to think that you have to do anything, okay? Especially not because you think I want it. Or because you think I’ve done it before.”

Noct stared at him for a while, and then eventually he said, “But that’s not…”

“Noct?” Ignis said, when he trailed off, alarmed, and Noct let him go, dodged him when he tried to reach back out for Noct protectively.

“I’m not the one who can’t say no to _you_ , am I?” Noct said, feeling horribly upset and unnerved. Gladio’s talk was echoing around his head, and he understood now what Gladio had meant, when he’d told Noct they had to be careful of each other. He'd meant that it wasn’t just Noct who was vulnerable and scared, who didn't really know what they were doing but didn't want to stop. 

“ _No_ ,” Ignis said immediately, voice thin with real alarm, and Noct was too damn weak to refuse him again when Ignis all but attached himself to him, pulled Noct up into his arms and rocked them, his lips on Noct’s forehead. “No, Noct, okay? That’s _not_ what this is. I want this, I want you,” and when Noct lifted his chin Ignis was already there, kissing him with fierce reassurance.

Noct moved into him, needing mindlessly to be close, and Ignis got them laying down again, curled them around each other and helped Noct burrow in tight like he really wanted to be close too. 

“Sorry,” he said again, feeling a little teary, stupidly; he was supposed to have so much better control over himself, but Ignis had always been where Noct went to let out the feelings he held back almost all of the time otherwise. 

Ignis shook his head. He smiled, his bottom lip still kind of wobbly and said, “Whatever you want, okay? Anything, Noct.”

Noct rolled over and tried putting his head on Ignis’s chest and Ignis let him instantly, put his arm around Noct and stroked Noct’s hair and pulled the edge of the covers over them, and Noct closed his eyes and slept. 

They napped for about an hour and when Noct woke and rubbed at his eyes it was dark out and Ignis said, “I should get going.”

He didn't move, though, didn't try to dislodge Noct from being comfortably sprawled over him at all. “Just a bit longer,” Noct said coaxingly, feeling equilibrium and confidence and desire all returned with the comfort of napping together, Ignis’s skin against his and his breath in Noct’s hair, and leaned up to find Ignis’s mouth with his. 

They kissed lazily at first. Noct was very experienced now and knew just what Ignis liked, that he liked to cup Noct’s face and for Noct to nibble gently on his lower lip and tease him with soft open-mouthed kisses; he liked to work up to tongues and deep messy kissing and hands going everywhere. Noct liked that too, liked the way it felt like Ignis’s body was waking his up, like every part of him was just constantly waiting for Ignis in order to come alive. By the time they were really making out he was always totally into it, completely focused on Ignis and what they were doing together, every bit of touch and sensation going right through him.

He pulled Ignis on top of him and that was fantastic too, the first time he'd really felt Ignis’s weight pressing him down into the bed. It made him feel safe, like nothing could get past Ignis, and he grabbed Ignis’s hair and made his kisses demanding, magic sparking between them even stronger than before and making Ignis groan and clench his fingers in Noct’s hair. 

They were both hard again, and this time Noct wasn't afraid. He wrapped his legs around Ignis’s waist and thrust the greedy bulge of his cock up against Ignis’s, and when Ignis murmured, “You sure, love?” he just kissed harder and rubbed up on Ignis more purposefully, the petname that seemed to have just slipped out of Ignis going straight to the glowing warmth in his chest and the heat in the pit of his stomach. 

“Noct,” Ignis said, “you feel good, you're so good,” and Noct went eagerly as Ignis readjusted them, planted his knees and shifted Noct’s legs around his waist for them to get a better angle and started to grind steadily down. Noct yelled at the pressure, pleasure drenching him from the tips of his toes to his hair just from the feel of Ignis’s cock against his, Ignis all over him, sensitive from the wet cotton of his boxers. It was overwhelming but as long as he had Ignis he was okay and he clung on fiercely, got Ignis’s mouth back on his to kiss through it as he came, a field of stars blanking out his vision. 

Ignis called Noct’s name when he came too, and that was the best, maybe even better than coming himself, the thrill of having done that for Ignis, the warm animal satisfaction of sharing this with him.

Ignis collapsed onto him, and when Noct mmphed he said, “Sorry,” his voice raw and giggly, and Noct said, “S’okay,” feeling giggly and joyous too, like they had a secret. Ignis tipped over to Noct’s side, much more ungainly than Noct had ever seen him, and pulled Noct back into his arms. Neither of them could really make their mouths work but they tried to kiss anyway, just close and breathing into one another’s mouths; Ignis brushed Noct’s hair out of his face, even though Noct had sweated and his bangs were kind of sticky, and gazed into his eyes, and Noct gazed back. 

“You don't have to go yet, do you?” Noct said. It felt actually impossible to stop touching Ignis, it was the worst idea he'd ever heard, to not have Ignis near enough to kiss. 

“No,” Ignis said, and ran his thumb softly over Noct’s bottom lip. “I don't have to go just yet.”


	5. Chapter 5

“You've got a text,” Prompto reported when Noct came back from the bathroom. He brightened and said, “Is it from a girl? Did Macha start talking to us again?”

“It's not from a girl, it's from Ignis,” Noct said. Then he took a deep breath. Then he took another deep breath, and then another one, and he said in a rush, “I don't think I'm going to text any more girls, Prom.”

“No,” Prompto agreed cheerfully. “‘Cause, you’d have to meet some first.”

Noct chewed the inside of his lip and pushed the rest of his hot dog away, appetite vanished. He said, “No, I mean… I'm not going to text any girls. Like, any girls. I don't wanna text girls.”

“Oh,” said Prompto, obligingly, and then, “ _oh_. Like… for sure? You're not going to text any girls ever?”

Noct fought off a blush, unsuccessfully, and couldn’t stop himself from glancing at his phone. “I'm not going to text any girls right now, okay? I'm, um. Too busy to text girls.”

Prompto’s eyes slid to the phone too and he said, “ _Ohhhhh_.”

He looked at Noct a little disbelievingly and Noct said in a voice that went a little squeaky, “Is that okay?”

He told himself it was fine whatever Prompto thought. He'd managed for years without having anyone just of his own; there'd been nobody who wasn't inexorably connected to his life at the palace, to being Prince Noctis. He'd be fine if Prompto didn't want to be his friend anymore.

“Why wouldn't it be okay?” Prompto said, even though his eyes were round and he was visibly making an effort to be cool. 

Noct appreciated the effort a lot. “Thanks, man,” he said quietly. 

Prompto’s smile became startled, real, then. “Yeah, of course,” he said, quiet too, which he hardly ever was, and Noct relaxed under Prompto’s cautious hand on his arm. 

***

Ignis showed up two weekends later with his hair bleached practically white. 

“What the fuck,” Noct said, blankly, and then started to laugh. 

“It's not that bad,” Ignis said, half-heartedly. Noct stepped up to him and ran his hand gingerly through it, rubbing a lock between two fingers. It felt rough and dry, not silky and good like it had just last week. He chewed on the inside of his lip to keep from collapsing back into laughter, and caught the way Ignis was looking at him, sweet enough to make Noct forget all about the hair for just a minute. Ignis had already helpfully slouched down to put them on a level for Noct’s investigation of the hair situation and Noct took full advantage, leaned in and took a slow, luxurious kiss.

It was hard to stay off the topic, though. Ignis’s head was right there. “Did you do this to yourself?” he said doubtfully.

“I don’t wish to discuss it,” Ignis said with his finest hauteur. 

“Do you want to fix it?” he said, dripping with sympathy. He slipped his hand into Ignis’s and squeezed, and Ignis looked pretty mad, but he squeezed back.

“Yes,” he said, grudgingly.

Noct had to listen to a pretty long talk from the duty secretary in his dad’s office, on how his hair was too dark for drugstore boxed hair dye, but he managed to finally get through to her that it wasn’t for him, while Ignis went through his recipe notebook and sulked on the couch beside him. She was very efficient once he’d got that out of the way, and less than an hour later Noct was sitting on the bathroom counter next to the sink and watching Ignis carefully apply the weirdly orange liquid that would apparently turn his hair back to its normal dull sandiness.

“When are you gonna be done with this?” he said. He kicked his heels back into the cupboard door idly and without looking Ignis leaned to dig an elbow into his thigh, keeping his dye-covered gloved hands out of the way.

“I think I’ve nearly finished but it takes thirty minutes to develop, and then washing until the water runs clear,” Ignis said, frowning into the mirror. “Check the box.”

“Not done with the dye,” Noct said, annoyed. “Done with _this_.”

He waved a hand in Ignis’s vague direction, but he meant it to cover the whole thing: his hair, and his glasses, and the clothes, and the shoes, and the everything. The everything being _different_.

“When I find what feels right,” Ignis said absently. He’d started to massage the dye in, carefully, and then he put a shower cap on over it all, because the secretary lady had said that would help, and when he looked at Noct properly he looked so fucking ridiculous, and so perfect Noct was full to the brim of it. He couldn’t think of anything better to do with his day than be by Ignis, even when Ignis was doing something as objectively useless as dying his hair back to normal after he’d fucked it up. It was all Noct wanted, he was all Noct wanted, and when Ignis smiled and gave Noct a fond kiss, Noct still closed his eyes and fell into it.

“Aren’t you looking forward to when you never have to wear that school uniform anymore?” Ignis said. “And you can find something that suits who you want to be?”

Noct had never thought about that for a second. He figured he’d just wear pretty much what he wore now at weekends, which was jeans and t-shirts.

“Yeah?” he said.

Ignis looked fond. He said, “They’re just clothes, Noct."

“This isn’t clothes,” Noct pointed out. “Dad’s secretary said your hair might fall out.”

“Yeah,” Ignis said, and looked in the mirror again, glumly. “I’m going to stick to clothes from now on. Maybe a different style.”

“You should do the one where it sticks up again,” Noct said and hopped off the counter. He wrapped his arms round Ignis from behind and propped his head on Ignis’s shoulder and faced their reflections. They looked pretty good together; Noct was shorter, and all-around smaller, but they both had nice smiles. There was a silvery glow around them, almost a trick of the light, except Noct could feel his magic humming away contentedly inside him, and it calmed when Ignis touched him. 

“Let’s watch one of your comedy shows,” Ignis said, and craned back to kiss him again. “Twenty-two minutes is just about right for this to develop.”

What Noct hadn’t really thought through was that helping Ignis to wash the dye out meant Ignis taking his top off, and then Noct taking his top off because it got wet when Ignis flipped his hair around when Noct was leaning over the bath, and all in all by the time they got to the couch, Noct alternating between frantically kissing Ignis and trying to chase droplets of water over the planes of Ignis’s chest with his tongue, Ignis’s hair was still wet and they had really no idea whether it looked any better.

He pushed Ignis down and got on top of him: that was still his favourite, being in Ignis’s lap, able to touch him as much as he wanted, although it meant sacrificing being able to feel the whole of Ignis pressed against the whole of Noct. He settled for demanding long kisses instead, kisses that tumbled into one another without a pause, stroking over Ignis’s shoulders and upper back and soaking in the muscled strength he could feel there. 

Ignis sighed into Noct’s mouth. He felt relaxed under Noct’s hands, and it made Noct relaxed too, languid and almost dreamy; they had all afternoon, all weekend. He could feel magical energy pooling between them, but even that was lazy, too, making them warm everywhere they were touching, twining with the sparking pressure of desire running through Noct, his cock already stiff in his jeans.

They had the whole rubbing off thing pretty down by now. Last weekend they'd done it with just thin pajama pants between them, Noct riding his cock desperately against the hard muscle of Ignis’s thigh while Ignis gasped beneath him, one hand cupping and groping his own dick while Noct sucked two fingers of his other hand. Noct had come so hard he'd felt like he'd been hit by a behemoth and they'd lain together for ages afterwards, murmuring stupid sweet stuff and kissing. 

“Hey,” he murmured against the corner of Ignis’s mouth, and Ignis made an mming noise and tilted Noct back, carefully, so he could kiss down Noct’s throat and find a nipple with his mouth. Noct let him for a moment, but as soon as he started to feel himself getting speechless with pleasure he grabbed Ignis's ears, strands of Ignis’s hair falling cool and damp over his fingers, and pulled him up. 

“Hey,” he said again, more insistent. “Ignis, hey, watch, okay?” Ignis did, looked at him instantly, enthusiastic and hungry for whatever Noct had in mind and it made something inside Noct shiver with excitement and nervousness. He slid his hand down his own chest, which still felt pretty silly but Ignis thought it was sexy, so Noct was getting used to doing it, because that made him feel good enough to counteract the silliness. Ignis hadn't _said_ so specifically, that he thought it looked good when Noct stroked himself like that, but Noct could read what he liked now, he could see it how Ignis’s eyes went dark and his upper chest to the hollow of his throat went pink, feel it in the way Ignis’s dick twitched under his ass. 

He paused on his stomach, rubbing idly, more for getting up his courage again than for effect, but Ignis made a strangled noise anyway, gaze fixed to Noct’s hand, and that gave Noct enough to finish. 

He bit his lip and undid his jeans. The button, slowly, and then the zip, sticking his hand in between the fabric and his dick and whining at the pressure on his aching cock. 

“Noct,” Ignis whispered hoarsely and Noct rose on his knees and pushed his jeans down, and then in a quick moment before embarrassment could catch up, his boxers. Bare before Ignis, for the very first time, and he swallowed so loud it was almost a gulp and looked at the tip of Ignis’s nose, because he couldn't look in his eyes. 

“Come here,” Ignis said softly, and Noct clung to him as Ignis pulled him close and kissed him, running his tongue carefully over the little dents Noct had made biting his lip. His cock brushed and then pressed against the silky-warm skin of Ignis’s flat stomach and he cried out, the feeling of Ignis touching him there so different to his own hand. He could feel himself leaking, painting the lightly muscled definition of Ignis’s tummy with it. He could feel it there when Ignis gasped, tensed, and knowing it was because of how much he wanted Noct made Noct able to calm down and just feel it, just enjoy it, the sensation of air on his cock, the light scratch of Ignis’s jeans under his thighs. 

“Noct,” Ignis said and Noct said, “ _Touch me_ , please Iggy -”

Ignis’s hand closing around his cock made him dissolve, made him yell. He collapsed against Ignis, the warmth of his fist racing answering fire up Noct’s spine that was chased by magic, spreading through him until he felt like he was lit up, every nerve struck with ecstasy. 

Ignis’s hand on him was a little too loose, although Noct loved the way he stroked Noct’s balls as well, with total care, his palm caressing them and tickling lightly at the secret tender place behind them. Noct twined their fingers and showed him how to do it, rubbed a thumb over the wet head himself and groaned. It felt even better when Ignis said his name worshipfully, when he could see how Ignis was looking between his hands on Noct’s cock and Noct’s face like he couldn't decide which was better. 

“Now you,” he begged, wanting to see Ignis too, wanting to make Ignis feel as good as he was making Noct feel, and Ignis shuddered and lifted his face for Noct to dip down for sloppy-needy kisses. 

“Do it for me,” Ignis said unsteadily, “I don't want to take my hands off you, Noct, you feel so good,” and Noct shook and urgently had to have another kiss, another minute when all there was in the whole world was Ignis’s touch and Ignis’s kiss, transcendent. 

He was so clumsy trying to open Ignis’s pants, too much sensation singing and warring through him, and Ignis had to help after all, keeping one hand on Noct’s desperately hard cock and the other to slip the buttons of his fly undone when Noct couldn't, his entire being focused on imagining Ignis's dick in his hand until it was _real_ and he sighed with satisfaction as he felt it for the first time, felt how it seemed to move into his hand, how tender the skin felt over the big jut of his erection. Ignis called out to him, tossing his head back hard on the couch, and Noct could just say, “Yes, _yeah_ ,” like there was nothing else in the world but this, nothing important anyway. 

Noct couldn't make his legs work to move and take his weight off Ignis so Ignis could wriggle his pants and underwear down. He yelled and grabbed for Ignis as Ignis picked him up under the thighs and moved him with sheer strength, shoulders and arms flexing, dumped Noct on his back on the sofa and shoved his own pants down.

Noct dragged him down, there was a frantic minute of delicious skin all over skin as they tripped around one another in the tight space - and they were lying together, kissing wildly, jerking one another’s cocks. It was hard to focus on doing when Noct was shattering with the pleasure of being done to, the brilliant surprise of it all, but he was goal-oriented: he wanted to see Ignis come, he wanted to make Ignis come, he wanted to feel it through his fingertips.

“Ignis, I’m gonna -” he managed, and then he was arching against the bulwark of Ignis’s chest, orgasm whipcracking through him, so hard he could feel wetness smattering all the way on his chest.

He clenched as he came, helplessly, and Ignis caught in his breath and whined, high in his throat, and came too, holding Noct fiercely close, his face buried in Noct’s hair.

“Messy,” Noct said drowsily, trying to inch closer, gingerly, suddenly aware now he’d come that there was tangled clothes and jizz everywhere.

Ignis got a big hand on Noct’s chest, planted him back against the couch cushions, and Noct watched, feeling looked-after and adoring, as Ignis stripped them both efficiently of their pants and underwear, used Noct’s soft cotton boxers to clean them up, and dropped it all on the floor, which he never ever did; Noct had blown his mind so much he’d been driven to it, Noct thought, smugly. He squeezed over again when Ignis was done, invitingly, and Ignis lay on the couch and pulled Noct to lie comfortably on top of him, and the blanket on top of Noct from where it was draped on the back of the couch.

“Okay?” Ignis said. He sounded a little awestruck, a little afraid, and Noct leaned up for soft kisses, to reassure them both. 

He felt raw but Ignis’s arms around him were putting him back together like a jigsaw. Ignis’s cock was lying plump and sticky against Noct’s hip, and Noct’s was already starting to get a bit perky. “Definitely okay,” he said, snuggling in. More than okay: the whole weekend was in front of them, and they could do it _all again_.

***

Noct heard Prompto before he saw him, protesting, and he made his way across the entrance chamber - the people milling around while everyone waited for the celebrations to start falling away respectfully at the passage of the prince - and rescued him from the pair of guards trying to bar his entrance at the Great Door.

“Thanks, Noct,” Prompto exclaimed, or tried to, his voice failing him from his usual exuberance. He was visibly bothered by the palace staff having tried to turn him away, by their disbelieving his story of being due to join the Crown Prince for the solstice celebrations: Noct put his arm around Prompto’s shoulders protectively and led him away, letting Gladio know with a glance to advise the guards of their mistake.

“Is that Gladio?” Prompto said, trying to peer back around over Noct’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Noct said.

“He looks weird,” Prompto said dismally.

Did he? Noct got them installed in his favourite corner to lurk during these things and glanced back over too. Gladio was coming back over to them, his entire job at formal events being to stay one step behind Noct, and he looked normal - not normal for when he picked Noct and Prompto up for driving, or hung out with them for games, or took Noct camping, or did anything else real life, no, but he was wearing the Crownsguard uniform he always did for palace stuff. He’d graduated the Academy this year and moved onto training full-time with his dad so he had double insignia now, one on his right shoulder for his full rank and the special one on his left that marked him out as Amicitia and a guard of the royal family. His hair was neatly pulled back and his stride was different, full of so much casual strength and power Noct could practically see the greatsword slung over his shoulder, and people moved out of the way for him; but that was pretty normal too.

In the meantime, Prompto had clearly looked Noct over. “You look weird too,” he said. Noct looked down at himself. He was wearing a suit and shirt and tie and polished shoes - not that much different from his school uniform except it was all black and tailored especially for him - and the slim half-diadem of the Crown Prince, which he hated, and which it had taken half an hour and all of Ignis’s patience that morning to get in place without messing up Noct’s hair too much.

“What’s weird about this?” he said.

“They didn’t even want to let me in,” Prompto said miserably, but then Gladio reached them and he was all smiles again, bouncing.

“Everything okay?” Gladio said. Noct saw him take in the way Prompto was acting in one deliberate glance and then he shifted, smoothly, so naturally Prompto probably didn’t even notice, but Noct did: he saw the way Gladio’s new stance put him in between Prompto and the front of the room, shielded him, and he smiled at Gladio gratefully.

“Yeah,” Prompto said. “Great! I was just -” he looked in between Noct, and Gladio, and down at his own outfit, which looked fine to Noct. He was wearing a pair of dark grey trousers and a white shirt and a navy tie; the shirt was a tiny bit grubby with too many washings, and when Noct looked properly he could see the little ink stain on the cuff that meant it was one of Prompto’s school shirts, but it was ironed practically nicer than Noct’s shirt and Noct felt a surge of protectiveness at Prompto’s evident discomfort.

“You look okay,” Gladio said, a little roughly. “Right, Iggy?” 

Noct hadn’t even noticed him. He turned to Ignis, as happy to see him as if they hadn’t been together about half an hour ago; he wanted to take Ignis’s hand, wanted to kiss him, but of course they couldn’t. He settled for a tentative, private smile, instead, and Ignis smiled back, then looked thoughtfully at Prompto.

“You look good too,” Prompto said, in clear distress. Noct was hardly going to disagree: Ignis was in a black suit too, the outline of the Lucii symbol sewn onto lapels of the jacket, making up for the tiny skull pendant being hidden behind the perfect knot of his tie. He looked untouchable, buttoned up and too perfect; but in that outfit he also looked like Noct’s, everything he was wearing marking him out as a close companion of the prince, and it gave Noct a brilliant thrill in his chest and his groin both to see it.

“Prom’s dressed okay, right?” Noct said, encouragingly.

Prompto was drooping in front of Ignis’s inspection, but he brightened with surprise and joy when Ignis said, “You should have some black. To show you’re with the prince.”

“Where do I get -” Prompto started, then said, “oh, um, okay, wow,” as Ignis turned and summoned one of the palace staffers with the smallest quirk of an eyebrow, bent to her and murmured. She listened to what he had to say, gave them a wide, professional smile, sizing Prompto up with one glance, and shimmered off to acquire a jacket, probably straight off of the back of someone lower-ranking and unlucky.

“Thanks,” Noct said, and Ignis inclined his head in quiet acknowledgement of both the service and the gratitude. 

Ignis came in close and Noct brushed the backs of their hands together, the tiny contact soothing and energising him for the attention and bustle of the ceremony ahead. That, and their warmth around him, the four of them a steadfast tight huddle against the crowd.

***

Noct had taken his tie off ages ago but Ignis was still wearing his, loosened just enough for him to undo the top button in the car. Noct put it to good use, grabbing it and pulling Ignis down to him to kiss as soon as they got in the apartment.

Dad had allowed Noct a glass of champagne to toast the sunrise and he could still taste the effervescence in his mouth, imagined he could taste it on Ignis’s - although if Ignis tasted of anything it was all the tiny strong coffees he’d drunk during the night and all through the long celebratory breakfast. Noct felt as if he’d been drinking coffee too, that combination of languid and wired from staying up all night, and it made some bits of the kiss blur and others sharp and vibrant: Ignis’s hands cupping Noct’s face still a little cold from the brisk winter air, his lips rougher and chapped as he sucked carefully on Noct’s lower lip, the silky feel of the small of his back as Noct sneaked Ignis’s shirt untucked and slid his hands up onto skin.

Ignis pulled away with a final kiss to Noct’s cheek and wandered through to the kitchen. “Do you want anything to eat?” he called, putting the machine on for more coffee, inevitably.

“Nah,” Noct said. He’d only picked at breakfast, but he never had an appetite after sleepless solstice nights and Ignis had fixed a stew yesterday they could reheat when they’d slept. That was pretty much all Noct was hungry for, had been all night; sleeping it off together, nice and quiet. He said, “Do you think my dad liked Prom?”

“I think so,” Ignis said. He’d got out thick cream for his coffee, which was a special treat, and he dipped a finger in it, painted the peak of Noct’s top lip white and watched with every sign of total attention as Noct licked it off, then grabbed Ignis’s hand and licked the tip of his finger too, the cream smooth and cool on his tongue. “I think it helped that he was so scared he was silent for once.”

“Yeah,” Noct said. Dad had looked a little bit confused by Prompto, to be honest, but he’d nodded and smiled kindly at Prompto’s clumsy bow that Ignis had taught him about ten minutes before, hand on his upper back and repeating _from the shoulders, not from the hips_.

“It’s good that you have him,” Ignis said softly.

“It’s good I have all of you,” Noct blurted, tiredness making him honest, and at Ignis’s startled smile he had to have Ignis’s mouth again, leaning up over the counter, and then on the counter, one knee up there and scrambling over with Ignis’s help until he was perched on the edge of the other side, legs spread and Ignis between them, cocks tight together through their very best dress pants. 

He put his fingers through Ignis’s belt loops and pulled him in and made him stay close while they kissed, Sunday on the couch with hot chocolate and roaring fire kisses. The anxiety and exhilaration of the public’s adoration were still hot in Noct’s veins, the magic he'd felt to his bones this year when his father completed the traditional solstice ritual was still glowing through him, and Ignis calmed him and stoked him in equal measure. 

He broke the kiss and hooked his chin over Ignis’s shoulder, hugging tight, and Ignis slid his arms around Noct’s waist and just held him. “Let’s go to bed,” he said, quietly into Ignis’s ear, and Ignis sighed and whispered, “Okay,” abandoning his coffee even, letting Noct take his hand and lead him into the bedroom. 

Undressing Ignis from a whole suit was a lot more annoying than unbuttoning his shirt and shoving jeans or practice pants or pajamas down, but it added a sense of ceremony to things that fit nicely with the lingering sensibility of the night of celebrations. He unwrapped Ignis like a gift, touching every new bared bit of skin like it was new, and Ignis did the same, and by the time they were naked together Noct felt like he had the first time his dad had laughed and said _hold on tight, Noct_ and Noct had shrieked with excitement and happiness as the Regalia took them flying high into the air. 

He was already hard and ready, just from stripping Ignis down. He pulled Ignis down onto the bed with him, both of them tangling up so easily and sweetly by now, like the smoothly choreographed dancers who'd performed earlier. 

Noct was sleepy but he was also still charged up with magical energy, feeling the crystal closer than he had any time since he'd started the training. He pushed Ignis over onto his back and rested a hand on his chest, Ignis watching him with affectionate, complacent bright eyes. Noct’s magic came alive between them, glowing over Ignis’s heart and all the way up to Noct’s, a pretty thread between them, and Ignis shuddered and threw his head back and spread his legs under Noct’s touch, his cock reddening further against his stomach. He was the most perfect thing Noct had ever seen and Noct just - Noct just really loved him, a lot, and he bent to mash their mouths together in a deep passionate kiss.

He reached down for Ignis’s dick while they kissed and Ignis cried out and thrust up hard into his fist. “Don't - don't tease,” Ignis begged, breathlessly, and Noct made an urgent reassuring noise. 

He didn't want to tease. There was something else he wanted, that he'd been thinking about and longing for so much, and he nuzzled Ignis’s cheek and said, “I want to, um, use my mouth. Ignis, can I?”

“Oh gods,” Ignis said fervently and grabbed Noct’s wrist to stop him moving on Ignis’s cock, looked up at Noct with shining eyes, slipped a hand through his hair, clumsy but soft. “Noct, are you sure?”

“I want to,” Noct said again, then, “please, can I?” and Ignis made a disbelieving groan. Noct could feel his cock moving in Noct’s loose grasp with how much Ignis wanted it too, ran his fingers down and felt Ignis’s heavy balls in their neat sack. 

“If you… if you really want,” Ignis said shakily. “It's okay if you don't, or you don't like it.”

“I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it,” Noct said. He was feeling a little nervous, though, so he laid on top of Ignis for a couple of minutes, Ignis’s arms around him and his thighs cradling Noct’s hips, their cocks brushing together, and attached himself to Ignis at the mouth. This was good, he'd learned how to do this, and Noct could figure this out too. He took a deep breath and a final kiss, and slithered his way down Ignis’s chest. 

It wasn't quite as simple as liking it. It was actually pretty stressful, trying to remember to keep his teeth covered and be careful, constantly losing the rhythmic sucking he was trying to get going, worrying that maybe he wasn't doing it right and Ignis wasn't having a good time. 

He did like being so close to Ignis, loved it. He liked it when he closed his eyes and just concentrated on the nice weight of Ignis’s cock in his mouth and the way it twitched when Noct tried out using his tongue. He liked the way Ignis’s fingers trembled in his and squeezed when he reached up and Ignis reached down at the same moment to hold hands. He liked how Ignis stroked his hair and said his name in a wondering tone when he came. 

It tasted weird. Noct sat up and spat into a tissue, trying to be cool, and checked nervously to see if Ignis had noticed, if he minded Noct hadn't swallowed. 

Ignis was looking at him fuzzily; he was looking at Noct in a way that made Noct feel suddenly gorgeous and powerful and adored. He inched closer and tried to cuddle up and lay his head on Ignis’s chest but Ignis grabbed his chin instead and kissed him, obviously not minding any taste or spitting or whatever, nudged Noct’s cheek with his nose and whispered, “That was _great_.”

“Was it?” Noct said and Ignis laughed, in a nice way, like he thought Noct had made a joke. 

“Yeah,” Ignis said. He slid his hand down Noct’s side like he just had to touch and felt how hard Noct was. Noct was vaguely aware he was incredibly stiff, aching even, his belly wet and sticky where he'd leaked, but it seemed like it took Ignis’s hand around him to really wake him up to it and he moaned and scrabbled for Ignis’s mouth again, wanting more kisses, wanting Ignis to make him come in return. “I'll show you,” Ignis whispered, and with a final kiss he wriggled down Noct’s body. Noct propped himself on his elbows and spread his legs eagerly for Ignis to lie between, his heart beating so quick with excitement he thought it couldn't be normal. 

Ignis’s wet warm mouth on Noct’s cock was incredible. He'd imagined it before, tried to, jerking off in the shower and shutting his eyes and pretending the wetness was someone else, and in retrospect he'd been totally stupid to bother because he hadn't come close, not anywhere near to how great it was. Ignis sucked him kind of unevenly and that made Noct feel good too, like maybe Ignis hadn't done it that much either, like they really were discovering this together. 

He petted Ignis’s hair, trying not to pull, touched Ignis’s cheek curiously and Ignis curled his tongue around the head of Noct’s cock and pushed it there so Noct could feel it, feel _he was inside Ignis_. He couldn't stop himself being noisy, embarrassing little whines and cries but it felt so good Noct had to get it out before his whole body turned inside out, sparks of magic and pleasure racing indistinguishable from his cock and up his spine. 

It was over pretty quick. Noct couldn't hold himself back, the sensation of Ignis’s mouth and tongue too much not to tumble far down into it. He felt orgasm coalescing in his whole body, braced himself and it was so good his vision whited out and he lost time, came back to a body gasping for breath and still trembling with ravishing pleasure. 

Ignis was lying next to him, on his side and pressed up against Noct, smiling down at him and stroking his tummy. His hair was messy from Noct’s fingers and his lips were tender pink. Noct had no idea if he'd used a tissue or swallowed or what, he'd missed it, but it didn't seem to matter anymore; all that stuff, the worries and self-consciousness, had just fallen away some time between Ignis putting his mouth on Noct and Noct coming his brains out. 

Noct rolled into Ignis’s arms and hooked his knee over Ignis’s hips and snugged their sticky softening dicks together. He touched Ignis’s mouth, felt him shape Noct’s name silently and smile. 

Ignis had always gone back to the guest room for proper sleep, but he didn't say anything about that now. He just chivvied Noct under the covers and arranged Noct on his chest, like he belonged in Noct’s bed, like they belonged there together. 

Noct woke up late that afternoon spooned tight against Ignis’s chest, Ignis’s breath ruffling his hair and his arm wrapped over Noct’s waist, laced up together. It was too hot and Noct’s neck was cricked and he couldn't figure out how to get untangled to get up and go to the bathroom. He was happy. 

***

When Noct went into university, Ignis packed his bags and moved in. 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://concernedlily.tumblr.com)!


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